WHAT’S IN A NAME
By Kyle LoJacono
This week will look into how Ten Cent Road, Tommytown, Trilcoochee, Trilby and Wesley Chapel got their names.
(1) TEN CENT ROAD dates back to the Great Depression. At the time, Work Projects Administration (WPA) workers built a road about 5 miles long that stretched from Ehren Cutoff to connect with Pump Station Road in Land O’ Lakes. Those workers where paid 10 cents per hour, which is where the name comes from.
(2) TOMMYTOWN was named after Tommy Barfield, who owned much of the area in Dade City after World War II. Barfield bought the land with Dorothy Lock, which was just next to what was then called the Pasco Packing Association and was later named Lykes Pasco. Barfield worked in the plant and also helped build many of the block duplex apartments in the area.
The land also included what would eventually become Lock Street, also known as Calle De Milagros, which is named after Dorothy Lock. Today, Tommytown is generally associated with the area along Lock between 14th and 21st streets.
(3) TRILCOOCHEE is the area between Trilby and Lacoochee north of Dade City along CR 575, also known as Trilby Road. The center of the community is along US 301. It is sometimes spelled Trilacoochee locally, but appears as Trilcoochee on most maps.
(4) TRILBY was named for George du Maurier’s Trilby, which was published serially in Harper’s Monthly in 1894. It was released as a book for the first time in 1895 and sold 200,000 copies in the United States, a large number at the time. The popularity of the book is what caused the community’s naming. Today, the area is normally associated with the area north of Dade City along CR 575, also called Trilby Road, around US 98.
(5) WESLEY CHAPEL is the area between Land O’ Lakes and Zephyrhills/Dade City in east Pasco County. The community was originally called Double Branch after the twin creeks that flowed across the area. Its named was changed after the opening of the Methodist chapel on the corner of SR 54 and Boyette Road. That church was named for John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement.
The name Wesley Chapel first appeared in Hernando County school board records from 1877-1878, before Pasco separated from the county to its north. A post office operated in the area from 1897-1902. The post office was called Wesley on maps during that period.
The area was considered part of Zephyrhills for most of the 1900s, until the current Wesley Chapel post office opened in 1997. Today the town has nearly 45,000 residents. If it was an incorporated city, it would be the largest municipality in Pasco.
For additional information on these areas and how they got their names, visit www.fivay.org.
*The Laker and the Lutz News series on how historic places were named will continue throughout the summer. Information is provided by interviews with Pasco County historian Jeff Miller of Fivay.org and the West Pasco Historical Society. See how Lutz got its name next week.
