History & Culture · Long Island
New Hyde Park Got Its Name at Jericho Turnpike
New Hyde Park's name story runs through a post office request, Jericho Turnpike, Millers Lane, shade trees, and a Hyde Park name already taken upstate.
Published July 6, 2026 · Last verified July 6, 2026
Jericho Turnpike and Millers Lane carry a small naming story in New Hyde Park. In 1871, John C. Christ and Philip J. Miller asked for a post office and wanted the name Hyde Park. To show there was enough mail for it, they and friends wrote letters and cards to themselves.
The volume helped, but the name did not. Hyde Park had already been assigned to the Dutchess County place later tied to Franklin D. Roosevelt. So the Nassau County community became New Hyde Park, and the post office opened at Jericho Turnpike and Millers Lane.
The name had older layers too. The village history connects Hyde Park to George Clarke’s estate and his wife, Anne Hyde. Miller also left a visible mark on the future village by planting maples and other trees along Millers Lane, Ingraham Lane, and New Hyde Park Road. Thousands more trees followed in the 1920s, turning open land into shaded streets.
That makes New Hyde Park feel less like a borrowed name and more like a practical Long Island story: mail, roads, trees, commuters, and a community choosing the word that would fit on the envelope.