Published: June 27, 2008 01:25 am      

Proposal: Rename portion of Everest Drive

Section suggested to be named in honor of Johnnie Johnson often called Water Street

FAIRMONT — At the next city council meeting slated for July 8, a public hearing will be held to address the renaming of a street on Fairmont’s East Side for late hometown blues musician Johnnie Johnson.

Known now as Everest Drive — referred to commonly as Water Street — the proposed Johnnie Johnson Drive is a 600- to 800-foot road located at the intersection of Merchant Street to the former site of the low level bridge near Palatine Park.

Before the demolition of the bridge several years ago, Everest Drive ran straight across the river into the city’s West Side.

Today, there are two portions of the road on each side of the river. Although its formal name is Everest Drive, City Manager James Snider said the section proposed for the name change is typically known as Water Street.

“The way the road is, it is Everest on one part and Water on the other,” Snider explained. “That portion of Everest Drive that most people call Water Street is the proposed Johnnie Johnson Drive.”

If the change passes, Water Street will no longer exist, but there will still be an Everest Drive on the west side of the river, Snider said.

“I think the thought process of the council is that the portion across the river is still in place so there is still that recognition,” he said.

Everest Drive was named in 1957 after General Frank Kendall “Pete” Everest, a multi-talented career U.S. Air Force officer and Fairmont native. Everest became known as the “fastest man alive” in the 1950s for attaining an unofficial speed record of 1,957 mph or Mach 2.9 in the Bell X-2 rocket plane.

The request to change the name of the road was sparked recently by Bill Stalnaker, founder of the Johnnie Johnson Blues and Jazz Festival held each summer in Fairmont. Stalnaker has also proposed the building of a jazz and blues resource center dedicated to Johnson and the jazz and blues genre.

He addressed council members recently with conceptual plans for the center which would be located in the same general area as the proposed Johnnie Johnson Drive on the city’s East Side.

He pitched that Fairmont is a stop on the direct route to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, where Johnson and many other famous blues and jazz musicians are honored. He said the proposed resource center would be a great way to attract tourists headed to the popular Cleveland destination into Fairmont.

Council members are slated to vote on the changing of the name of this proposed portion of Everest Drive following the public hearing July 8.

E-mail Mallory Panuska at mpanuska@timeswv.com.