Why Does Spring Mountain Turn into Sands Turn Into Twain?

We usually stay at the Orleans and avoid the Strip, but on our last trip, we had to meet friends who were staying at the Mirage, so we stayed at Treasure Island, because my husband absolutely refuses to pay for parking. Anyway, coming and going, we drove a lot on Spring Mountain Road, which turns into Sands Avenue, which turns into Twain Avenue. Why does the same street have three different names in such a short distance?

What generally happened in Las Vegas when street names change unexpectedly is that the original street dead-ended at the desert for a bit, then continued on the other side with a new name. Eventually, the streets merged, but the names didn’t.

In this case, it's a little different. According to a street map from 1950, the first of the three names was Twain. It wasn't much of a street, just the southernmost boundary of what seems to have been a proposed subdivision behind the Desert Inn, but turned into the DI golf course instead. Twain obviously continued east. Heading west to the Strip, it became Sands Avenue, named after the casino on that corner, which a long time later turned into the Venetian. (Sahara Avenue, Flamingo Road, and Tropicana Avenue have similar origins.)

At some point, Twain and Sands avenues came together. Sands makes a little dogleg to the south before it hooks up to Twain, which also indicates (to us, anyway) that they were two separate streets to begin with.

As for Spring Mountain, old maps of Las Vegas show that Sands Avenue didn't cross the Strip and continue west in the early 1950s. At that time, the Strip was barely 10 years old and there was very little development on either side of what was then called Highway 91. Residential areas were just starting to be built to the east. People who worked on the Strip wanted to drive west in the morning, with the sun at their backs, and east in the evening, with the sun at their backs. That’s why east of the Strip is the older and more congested side.

So when the street to the west of the Sands was laid out and graded, it wasn’t automatically thought of as an extension of Sands Avenue, which traveled only a couple of long blocks east to Paradise Road anyway, where it turned into Twain. (Twain, incidentally, started back up on the west side of the Strip south of Sands Avenue/Spring Mountain. If you draw a straight line from East Twain to West Twain, the twain shall meet.)

When it came time to name the western extension of Sands Avenue, any number of reasons, most probably also having to do with the hotel-casino, but in a negative way, might’ve caused the Highway Department to opt for Spring Mountain Road. Maybe the namer was jilted by a Copa Room showgirl. Maybe he was accosted by Sinatra or insulted by Rickles. Maybe he didn’t like the round shape of the Sands tower, being a linear kinda guy. Maybe he wanted to end the tradition of naming streets after casinos. Maybe he just liked the Spring Mountains.

A map from 1957 shows that on the west side of the Strip, Spring Mountain starts up west of the railroad tracks, with a dogleg from there to the Strip named D4C Road, which likely led to Hoot Gibson's D-4-C Ranch, located approximately between present-day W. Spring Mountain Rd. and W. Twain.

And thanks to Jeff for filling in some of the details in this answer.

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rokgpsman Dec-05-2022

Streets of confusion

It's not just Las Vegas, I've seen streets in other cities that change names abruptly at an intersection. As city neighborhoods grow formerly separate roadways sometimes get connected into a continuous street. But all the existing homes and businesses on the 2 former separate streets wouldn't want to have to change their address to a new street address name and number. If Twain and Sands Ave were renamed to Spring Mtn Road it would be less confusing, but think of all the buildings, businesses and homes that would have to deal with changing their address.

pfblas Dec-05-2022

Twain abnormalities

More strange things happening with East Twain:

- At the Pecos-McLeod Interconnect E Twain turns into s Mohave and at the next intersection the opposite happens. By diverting both streets they avoided a 6 way crossing with the PM Interconnect.

- E Twain dead ends at Eastern Ave and resumes at Spencer St.

- For no apparent reason there's a locked gate closing E Twain at the Algonquin Dr intersection by the Boulevard Mall at Maryland Pkwy. Only way in and out of the parking garage is from Maryland.

dblund Dec-05-2022

Makes sense...

..."and never the Twain shall meet"

            Someone had to say it.

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