I pass Chris Gaupp Drive in Galloway several times a week and never really thought about it until this morning -- who is Chris Gaupp and why is there a street named after him?

I was driving on Jimmie Leeds Road this morning and for some reason I was paying attention to all of the alphabetically-named streets -- Poplar, Orange Tree, Nectar, Maple, and then Chris Gaupp Drive. Obviously that doesn't fit the pattern and that got me to wondering who Chris Gaupp is.

According to an article in Shore News Today from August, 2013, Christian Henry Gaupp III began working for Galloway Township in 1940 as a grader operator. He retired in 1978 in charge of the township's public works department. With over 38 years of service to the township and its residents, the road between the White Horse Pike and the hospital was renamed Chris Gaupp Drive. That street was originally called Kumys Avenue when Gaupp retired in 1978 and it only existed on paper as a road-to-be-built. About ten years after his retirement, work on Chris Gaupp Drive was completed and it opened to traffic sometime around 1987.

Gaupp, who was still very active in the community well after his retirement, passed away two weeks shy of his 102nd birthday on July 29, 2013.

 

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