No Such Thing as a Nameless Street in Lakewood

People drive by it all the time. Thousands of cars pass the sign every day as they roll along Gravelly Lake Drive and passed Park Lodge Elementary School.

I was recently asked who is Alfaretta of Alfaretta Avenue? After a few visits to Tacoma Public Library and basic Internet research, here's what I've found.

Alfaretta Avenue was named after Alfaretta (Scott) Haney. She was the wife of Bert E. Haney. She moved to Lakewood area from Minnesota in 1884.

Alfaretta had a daughter at the time; she was was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota shortly before the Haneys moved West. The family made the trip west when the baby, Edna Mae, was only three weeks old.

And you thought your long family car ride over the mountain pass as rough.

The couple settled in what was prairie land outside the bustling town of Steilacoom to set up land development and real estate deals in the rural areas outside of Tacoma.

One of their larger deals included the Dekoven Inn, along what is now Alfaretta Avenue. The inn was originally build as a school before the turn of the last century. It was named after the school's main teacher, James Dekoven of Wisconsin. The building was a school until 1919, when if changed to the Dekoven Inn. It suffered a fire in 1925. It later housed the Lakewood Players theatre group before converting to apartments in the 1970s as Dekoven Hall.

Alfaretta's daughter and son in law also pioneered the Lakewood area. The Northwest room has no obituary of Alfaretta on record. The trail ends there.