As part of its Highway 7 Reconstruction between Silver Lake and St. Bonifacius, the Minnesota Department of Transportation took photographs of the roadways before construction began and after it ended. Among those photographs is a handful of photos from the intersection of Minnesota Highway #7 and Zebra Avenue. These photos (dated September 30, 2008) do not seem to show Zebra Avenue itself, only Highway 7.
If you look at a map of this region you may notice something interesting -- which is to say that I spotted something of note: The named avenues across this part of Minnesota seem to follow alphabetically. Starting from Zebra Avenue and looking east it seems most of the named streets follow the alphabet in reverse order. After Zebra comes Yale, Weller, Vega, Urban, Tacoma, Salem, Rome, Quaas, Polk, Oak, Naples, Market, Laurel, Kelly, Jersey, Halsey, and then Guernsey. At Guernsey my tired eyes lose the trail (if there really is one and I am not imagining this). I can not seem to spot an avenue the name of which starts with an X, but the presence of Quaas Avenue with other circumstantial evidence suggests an alphabetic avenue planning system in this region of Minnesota.
