Stella Link, Laura Koppe and Shatner Drive: How Houston streets got their names



>>See how other Houston streets got their names in the photos that follow...





less Looking west toward Houston on Harrisburg from 67th, August 1914. The nearby townsite of Harrisburg was established in the mid-1820s by John Richardson Harris.

>>See how other Houston streets got ... more Looking west toward Houston on Harrisburg from 67th, August 1914. The nearby townsite of Harrisburg was established in the mid-1820s by John Richardson Harris. Photo: Chronicle File Photo: Chronicle File Image 1 of / 29 Caption Close Stella Link, Laura Koppe and Shatner Drive: How Houston streets got their names 1 / 29 Back to Gallery

Did you know that behind North Oaks shopping center in northwest Houston, there's a DeForrest Street and Shatner Drive, one developer's nod to Kirk and McCoy from "Star Trek"?

Way out in the Park Ten area on the far west side, there used to be a street called Houston Chronicle. Years ago there was an idea to move some offices out there, but it never came to fruition.

And then there's Stella Link. Of course, if you've lived here long enough, you know that's not the name of a person, but rather the name for a street that followed a railroad line from Bellaire to the townsite of Stella. It was the link to Stella, you might say.

Houston street names have always been a fun topic of discussion. The best, and only, book on the subject is "Historic Houston Streets: The Stories Behind the Names" by Marks Hinton. You can still find it online, though you'll pay quite a bit for it. Much of the information in the photo gallery above came from Hinton's book.

Though Hinton does mention Laura Koppe in his book, uncovering further details of her life took a little more research. The Little Rock native was born in 1868 to French-born David Mike and Mary Evans of Arkansas and eventually settled in Houston.

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Koppe, who lived at the Oxford Apartments off Fannin at Clay, appeared quite a few times in the Houston Chronicle in the newspaper's early days. Much of it centered on brief items noting her travels to see relatives or notices on land deals.

In 1909, though, a teenage inmate from Burleson County claimed he was forced into servitude, or peonage, and mistreated while working at a farm Koppe co-owned in Somerville. She was never charged and a federal conspiracy trial against Burleson County officials thought to have directly mistreated the teen ended in an acquittal.

In perhaps the most direct link to the area where the street that bears her name is located, the Laura Koppe Oil Company in 1917 started a drilling test in the Crosstimbers area, "one-half mile east of the Humble-Houston Road, and just north of the county road," the Chronicle wrote at the time. Later that year, she was noted for her investment in the war effort.

Koppe died of chronic myocarditis in 1928 while visiting her daughter in El Paso. Her death certificate indicates she was widowed.

The first mention of Laura Koppe Road in the Chronicle came in April 1936, when plans were announced for what's now Dodson Lake Park.

J.R. Gonzales, a third-generation Houstonian, covers local history with an eye toward the people and events that have mostly been forgotten to time. Follow him through Bayou City History on Facebook and Twitter. He can be reached at 713-362-6163 or john.gonzales@chron.com.