Is it pronounced SHinden or CHinden? And what is the history of this street in Garden City?
- Julie via e-mail
After our feature on Five Mile Road - we seemed to touch a vein of curiosity about well-known local roads with names that have less-than-well-known origins. Today we'll feature Chinden Blvd. - and as the week moves on we'll get to the root of Blackcat Rd. and Chicken Dinner Rd.
Research for Chinden was easy - in fact, all it took was a walk down the hall to KTVB's tape archive. Former Idaho Life Reporter John Miller got the scoop on Chinden for a 2001 feature story ( ).
Depending on whom you ask, the road's name is either pronounced with a hard SH or a softer ch. John found the woman who quite literally wrote the book on Garden City's history - Donna Kahn.
Her research found that the popular five lane thoroughfare was once a sleepy two-lane highway through a series of Chinese gardens. As the town grew, the rather generic "Highway 20/26" moniker no longer seemed to fit - so about 60 years ago a contest was held to find something better.
A resident submitted the name Chinden - a contraction of Chinese Gardens - and won $50 for the creation.
As to the pronunciation - those in the know say it comes from "Chinese" - so the soft "ch" sound like your chin - not the hard "sh" like your shin.
If you're still saying "shinden," John noted "you couldn't be more incorrect if you were standing in front of a CHEV-rolet holding a pork shop at the CHEV-ron on Shin-den!"