There is an odd place name in Burbank: Turkey Crossing. What's even odder is that I was a Burbank resident for fifteen years (1965-1980) and only heard of it 23 years after I moved away!
I first heard of it in an e-mail from an Internet correspondent named Marti, and immediately asked where this place was and how it got its name.
From Marti: "According to a City of Burbank History, this was an area where the original airport was built by Lockheed in the mid-1920's. My dad was born in Burbank in 1913 and was raised on a ranch which encompassed the area where you lived (Lincoln St. at Victory). Part of that ranch became the airport land. He and my mother, who spent most of her childhood in Burbank, were the ones who referred to Turkey Crossing as the area where San Fernando Road now goes under the freeway and the train tracks. During the War (World War II ), there was a pedestrian underpass there for the workers to get to Lockheed without walking over the tracks. While this is fenced off now, it is still there."
(A recent photo of the entrance to the underpass is supplied by Internet correspondant David Freiburger is here. Note date in the concrete: 1941.)
Okay, so know we know where it is - but why was it called that? Apparently the name was in use sometime in the 1920's. According to Mary Jane Strickland of the Burbank Historical Society, many trucks loaded with turkeys were hit by trains at this location.
So there you have it. That bleak-looking underpass where the railroad intersects San Fernando Road was once a site where unfortunate turkeys met their demise - Turkey Crossing.
Click here for a cool photo of Turkey Crossing dated 17 July 1942. The annotations are by Mike. Lots of detail in this photo of the Burbank wartime military-industrial complex... I like the guy on the scooter at the lower left. The underpass entrance is where that group of people are on the right hand side. I think they emerge behind that black wall near the vee where the other gaggle of people are.
