Tulsa - Bixby - Jenks - Broken Arrow OK - Claremore Oklahoma Real Estate

Tulsa Street Layout
A Guide for Navigating Tulsa Streets

Tulsa's Grid System
With few exceptions, metropolitan Tulsa is easy to navigate, having been laid out in a grid system with square-mile increments. This grid system is important, as most business owners in town will give you directions according to the nearest cross street.

Virtually all of the major streets in Tulsa run East to West or North to South, and are set a mile apart from each other. Each avenue or street within the square mile is 1/10th-mile apart. If streets exist between these 1/10th-mile divisions they are called Place and Court respectively. Think Avenue or Street, then Place, then Court -- but remember whether or not you are headed North, South, East or West.

The center of the Tulsa's Cartesian grid is Main and Admiral in Downtown Tulsa. (Actually Admiral does not exist in downtown Tulsa because of the Frisco, a/k/a Burlington-Northern railroad tracks, but I'm sure you get what I mean.) Admiral and Main is the center of the grid. Main also does not exist south of downtown Tulsa due to the presence of the Arkansas River.

Click on the Tulsa county map below to enlarge it.

Avenues Run North to South
Avenues north of Admiral have North as a prefix. Avenues south of Admiral have South as a prefix. (eg., North Lewis Avenue is north of Admiral and South Lewis Avenue is south of Admiral.)

West Avenues
The Avenues west of Main are named after cities west of the Mississippi and arranged alphabetically from East to West (eg. Cheyenne and Denver are east of Houston.) After Union Avenue (which runs parallel to Highway 75, a/k/a "The BeeLine") the avenues are numbered according to how far west they are from Main Street. (eg., South 33rd West Avenue or North 33rd West Avenue are both 3.3 miles west of an imaginary axis running North to South along Main Street in downtown Tulsa.)

East Avenues
Conversely, the Avenues east of Main are named after cities east of the Mississippi and arranged alphabetically from West to East (eg. Boston and Detroit are west of Peoria.)

The Avenues east of Main run through the alphabet three times until they get to a point 6.5 miles east of an imaginary axis running North to South along Main Street in downtown Tulsa. Then street namers gave up and started numbering the avenues. If Sheridan were numbered, it would be 65th East Avenue. The first street east of Sheridan is South or North 65th East Place.

Major Avenues at 1-mile Intervals
Heading East from Main Street, with the exception of Peoria, major avenues are not part of the alphabetical and numerical order. In one-mile increments the main avenues are: Peoria, Lewis, Harvard, Yale, Sheridan, Memorial, Mingo, Garnett, 129th E. Ave, 145th E. Ave., 161st E. Ave., 193rd E. Ave., a/k/a County Line Road.

A Historical Anomaly
Believe it or not, Pittsburg Avenue is named after Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania not Pittsburg, Kansas; that is because there was a period of seven or eight years when Pittsburgh, PA did not use the terminal "h" and that coincidentally was when the grid system was laid out in Tulsa around the time of statehood (1907).

Streets Run East to West
The East to West streets are numbered in 1/10th mile increments from Admiral Place.

The major streets South of Admiral are: E. 11th St., E. 21st Street, E. 31st St., E.41st St., etc. Notice that I did not say East 11th Street South, because the suffix is implied when it means South. If someone says, "Go to 51st Street," you will head to E. 51st St. South without even thinking about it.

However, streets to the North of Admiral usually use the suffix (eg. E. 46th St. North).

Don't forget "Street-Place-Court" heading South means that Street is North of Court, but when heading North you will find that Court is North of Street.

It does get confusing at times -- or fun if you don't cheat and use a map or a GPS device. Save those for Broken Arrow.

North Tulsa
I have said that East-West streets are numbered in Tulsa south of Admiral. Beginning with Admiral and going north alphabetically are streets with alphabetical names (eg., Admiral then Brady dowtown.) The first major street north is Pine. The next major street is Apache. After that is Mohawk Boulevard. After that the names run out and the numbering system picks up with 36th Street North.

From 36th Street North the major East West Streets heading north will be: 46th St. North, 56th St. North, etc. on up into Owasso and the northern part of Tulsa County.

Tulsa's Grid Extends Into Other Counties
As you go in almost any direction you will discover that Tulsa's grid system has been layed over the local street layout.

For example, in Broken Arrow (which has it's own street grid), the same road will have as many as four names. Most notable in my mind is Lynn Lane, which is called 9th Street or 9th Avenue in Broken Arrow, but is also called S.172nd E. Ave.

When crossing over into Rogers County an entirely different grid system takes over which has you figuring how many tenths of a mile you are from the Kansas border to the north and the Texas border to the west.

Interesting Links About Tulsa

Visit Tulsa
Wikipedia Information about Tulsa
Community Reports -- Get community information by zip code, including maps, aerial views, and other information. Compare different communities.

Schools

Tulsa Public Schools -- Click here to find real estate listings in Tulsa Public School Distrtict
Jenks Public Schools -- Click here to find real estate listings in Jenks School Distrtict
Union Public Schools -- Click here to find real estate listings in Union School Distrtict
School Reports -- Get school information by zip code, including maps, aerial views, and other information. Compare different schools.

Click on the map of Tulsa Public Schools to enlarge it. Then click on it again to turn it. Then click on it again to enlarge it so you can see all the schools and locate them on the Tulsa street grid.