During the spring of 1926, many of the property owners along Crooks Road in Royal Oak signed a petition requesting that the city commission rename this well-traveled street that begins north of downtown at Main Street and runs north of Catalpa, north through Troy and ends at West Avon Road in Rochester Hills.

The reason given was the embarrassment that some Royal Oak residents sensed when giving out their address, feeling that the word “Crooks” applied to them. One petitioner asserted, “If you had to shop downtown all day and be snickered at several times when you told clerks where you lived, you would feel different about it.”

The petitioners proposed the new name of Greenwood Drive. Another suggestion was Wendland Avenue to honor Frank Wendland, a young Royal Oak man killed in action during World War I. The American Legion Post on Main Street had already been named in his honor and remains so today.

To make the decision on the name more challenging, the city commission also received a second petition opposing the name change. The petition had signatures of 57 residents along Crooks Road, but only two of the signers of the second petition resided within Royal Oak city limits.

One objection to the name change came from Fred A. Cowen, one of the largest owners of property on the road. He told the Royal Oak commissioners that he had not been approached by the petitioners and was additionally opposed to the name change.

“I have lived on Crooks Road for 10 years and I have never had occasion to feel ashamed of the name,” Cowen said. “I don’t think it would be a good thing for the community to change it. If we go back to the time the road was named, we will find the family it was named after was well worthwhile, and they still are.”

Cowen was referring to the family of General David and Eunice Crooks from Massachusetts. David died in 1813 in New York. However, Eunice and the children moved to Michigan and settled on 160 acres of land west of Crooks Road between Big Beaver and Wattles roads in Troy Township in 1823. The daughter, Zada, married William Poppleton and members of the Crooks and Poppleton families were very prominent in the activities of the township for many years.

Crooks Road itself was developed through the efforts of these two families and from a mere trail became the first “good road” leading north in that direction from Royal Oak.

According to the late Royal Oak historian Lois Lance, David and Eunice’s son Riley Crooks hosted the first township meeting and election at his house on May 28, 1827, and was elected township clerk. At that time, Troy Township included the area that afterward became Royal Oak Township. Tragically, on April 27, 1830, at the age of 35, Riley Crooks was cutting down a limb off a tree, and it struck and killed him.

In her book, “Pathways of History Through Troy,” Lance also notes another source says the road was so named because the original road meandered, so it was crooked and was not named for the Crooks family.

The city commission considered the issue at its meeting on April 7, 1926. After consideration by both sides, the commission voted to retain the Crooks name.

“We believe that a distinctive name that has been in use for 100 years should not be changed,” said the opposing petition, “for it would cause much confusion in many ways. It would affect land descriptions and interfere with business. Furthermore, we do not like to change the name that we have come to respect and revere.”