I laid awake last night, pondering some political unrest in my own plight. And through a string of half-related issues, landed on one that has kept Plymouth people puzzled for decades, and longer.
Where did the name Garro Street come from?
This street was part of the original plat of the town from 1836, though no names were on the plat except for the main street it was platted around, Michigan Street. The furthest south (east/west) became South Street (later renamed LaPorte for its connection to the Plymouth-LaPorte Trail), the furthest north, North Street, and all those in between were named for the contemporary presidents beginning with Washington and ending with Harrison. So, who was this guy "Garro" that a street so prominent in the downtown, between South and Washington, would be so-named? The north/south streets were Water, Michigan, Center, Walnut and Plum(b-sometimes a "b" appeared on maps).
Back to Garro. This street's importance escalated in the downtown as the Nickel Plate Depot, post office and library were built along it, and then as it crossed the river to the east, it was crowned with Lincoln High School in the 1920s, like the great city halls and churches of East Coast cities. And now, it traverses one of the finest small city urban parks in the state, River Park Square.
As I understand it, no other name was associated with the street as far back as records show. At one time, it was misprinted "Gano" on a city map, but that was post-Garro. And at one time, East Garro was known as Taylor Street, but that was changed by the 1910s.
So, I did a little on-line research on the name Garro. I could find only one family of Garros in Indiana during the 19th century, located in Posey County. The name was confused with Gano as it was written in records, and it appears that the family used the Gano spelling by the second half of the 19th century. Gano.....ok, let's look at that. So, a research on the Gano name in Plymouth revealed the family of Jerry Gano living in the city in 1880. He and his wife were from Ireland, he was day laborer and lived on South (LaPorte) Street. Didn't appear to have much status in the city. I have a hard time believing the street was named for him, particularly since he lived a block away, in case you were thinking his land was used for an extension of the street.
So, were there any famous Garros in ancient history that the town founders may have been honoring? Well, indeed there is a pre-19th century famous Garro, Jose' de Garro, nicknamed El Santo (the Saint) was a Spanish military leader of the late 1600s and became the governor of Chile. His religious piety earned him the nickname El Santo. Were our founding fathers enamored with El Santo's exploits? Interest in Latin America grew during the middle part of the 1800s.
Now, I'm not a Star Wars fanatic, but evidently there is another famous, 21st century Garro. Nathaniel Garro, who was captain of the 7th great company of the Death Guard Space Marine Legion.
It would be interesting to know the true origin of this street name. I don't think that there are any others without a clear explanation. Or could we just adopt one of the more famous Garros above? There's an accomplished artist named Mark Garro, and a Mexican author named Elena Garro. If we can't find the true origin, maybe its time to embrace them all. Maybe what this street needs is a Mexican-Irish Bar called the Garro-Gano, just to cover all our bases.
