One of several names that Speedway has had over the years includes Feldman Street.
Alther M. Feldman was born March 10, 1833, in Eastern Europe. It is believed that his last name was that of his mother. His father died when Feldman was a baby, and his mother died when he was 12 years old.
Feldman lived a few years with relatives before striking out on his own. He immigrated to the United States in 1858 and likely landed at one of the New England ports, because he wed Mary E. Quimby on April 9, 1861, in Lowell, Mass.
In 1864, the couple lived in Washington, D.C., where Feldman owned at least one dry goods store. The following year saw the birth of their first child, Alther M. Feldman Jr.
In 1866, the family lived in Louisville, Ky. The next year they traveled overland to New York, where they boarded a ship to Panama, crossed the isthmus by train, then ventured on the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco.
The family lived in San Francisco and San Jose for a little more than a decade. During that time Feldman worked as a dressmaker, and at one point taught German and Hebrew at a private school.
After the Panic of 1873, the Feldmans' fortunes in California shrank considerably and by 1878, Feldman sold his land and, accompanied by his eldest son, traveled to Tucson. His wife and four younger children - Charles, Fred, Yetta and Alice - followed a year later, traveling by buckboard on a 70-day journey. On their way they stopped to camp outside of Los Angeles, then a small town of farms, vineyards and orchards.
When they arrived at the 160 acres Feldman had purchased outside town, they saw two partially finished rooms of an adobe house and a roofed barn. The house, at 906 N. First Ave., two blocks south of Speedway, was later expanded and is now the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity house.
While in Tucson, Feldman owned a photographic studio known as the Arizona Tent Gallery on the corner of Stone Avenue and Jackson Street and was a member of the Masonic Lodge.
On June 8, 1906, he became "the first fatality of the new electric car line," when he jumped from the moving car, and hit his head on a rock near the track. He is buried at Evergreen Cemetery.
Feldman's Neighborhood, just north and northwest of the University of Arizona, is named in his honor.
Editor's note
Each week Street Smarts tells the stories behind Tucson street names. If you have streets to suggest or stories to share, contact writer David Leighton at streetsmarts@ azstarnet.com
Sources: Special thanks to Wayne Dawson for his research assistance on the Feldman family. Clifford A. Truesdell, "The Walker-Feldman Families: Pioneers of Tucson & Benson," self-published, 1974 (Arizona Historical Society) Jane Eppinga, "Images of America: Tucson, Arizona," Arcadia Publishing, 2000 Office of Vital Records - Alther M. Feldman Death Certificate History of The Alther M. Feldman Home by Wayne Dawson (AHS) Feldman-Walker family papers, 1882-1946 (AHS) "A.M. Feldman Killed On Electric Line," Arizona Daily Star, June 9, 1906 Pima County plat maps 01014, 01021, 02025, 02028, 02030 Panic of 1873 website: dig.lib.niu.edu/gildedage/narr3.html
