The only plausible namesake for this street is the Baring Cross railroad bridge in Little Rock, AR, so named in 1873 because it was financed by the powerful British banking group Baring Brothers. (The “Cross” part is a matter of dispute: the bridge abuts Little Rock’s Cross Street, and it crosses the Arkansas River, but some say it comes from railroad chief Thomas Allen’s family coat of arms. It might also just be a riff on the famous Charing Cross railway station in London.) The mystery lies in how its name came to anoint this roadway. Developer Joseph A. Keeney (1865-1935) laid out Baring Cross on his 340 acre Sunny Side tract in 1904. This portion of 94th Street, then called Sunny Side Avenue, did indeed form a Celtic cross at its intersection with Baring Cross, at the center of a circular park that later – fittingly – became the site of a church. Keeney was born in Des Moines, IA, came of age in Evanston, IL, and to my knowledge never stepped foot in Arkansas. He bought this land from the Howland family, whose late father Joseph was from the Azores and had likely been a whaler off the coast here (see Portuguese Bend Road). Needless to say, no Arkansas ties for the Howlands either.
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