If streets could talk, all of them would have a story–perhaps several–but few of those tales would be as interesting as the one that would be told by little Mary Street.

Mary runs 11 short blocks south from East Main Street almost to Johnson Creek, where the road dead ends after skirting Arlington and Parkdale Cemeteries.

The story: Dr. M.H. Cravens came to Arlington in 1885 from Kentucky, building a home on the very end of East Main Street. Unfortunately, his first wife, Betty Burney Cravens, died. Eventually the good doctor remarried, taking as his wife Mary Carlisle, who was daughter of James M. Carlisle. James M. Carlisle was founder of the Carlisle Military Institute, which we now know by another name—The University of Texas at Arlington.

Mary Carlisle Cravens also died before her husband and was buried in Parkdale Cemetery. The foot path to the cemetery was rough, so the doctor used his tractor to smooth the route, a path that quickly became a street used by other town people also needing cemetery access. They called it “Mary’s Street,” soon shortening it to simply Mary Street.

There’s one more twist to the story. Dr. and Mrs. Betty Burney Cravens had a daughter, coincidentally named Mary. She eventually married Justin Carlisle, son of J.M. Carlisle, father of—okay, you get it. She became Mary Cravens Carlisle, her stepmother being Mary Carlisle Cravens. Since both the Cravens and Carlisle families are prominent in city history, the name similarities have been confusing historical researchers ever since.