L.A. Street Names – Los Angeles Street Names – their origins, their histories, their meanings

Welcome to L.A. Street Names, the origin stories of street names across Los Angeles County, from the shortest cul-de-sacs to the longest boulevards. Mysteries solved, myths debunked, scandals exposed, history revealed. This is an ongoing project with more than 1,800 streets – and growing. See FAQ for more information.

Featured Major Street

Agoura Road

Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Westlake Village

Pierre Agoure (1853-1912) was a French Basque rancher who immigrated to Los Angeles c. 1870. Although he and his wife Kate lived in town, acquiring 80 acres at the northwest corner of present-day Western Ave. and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. (subdivided by J. Harvey McCarthy in 1921 as “Agoure Park”), Agoure also owned some 16,000 acres here on the border between L.A. and Ventura counties, where he raised sheep and cattle. Agoure died after accidentally drinking formaldehyde and the ranch was inherited by his son Lester Pierre Agoure (1892-1953). With his wife Frances Lea Agoure (1891-1972), Lester petitioned the City of L.A. to annex this land in 1923 so they could access the City’s water supply. In 1927, during the hard-drinking Agoures’ lengthy but unsuccessful divorce attempt, “Agoura” was chosen for a post office here. The misspelling may have been accidental, but the name stuck. The City of Agoura Hills was finally incorporated in 1982.

Featured Offbeat Street

Cory Avenue

West Hollywood

Detail of 1958 mosaic mural by Jean Cory Beall

Named for Nathan and Gertrude Cory on a 1923 tract they co-owned. Nathan Thomas Cory (1861-1928) was born in Indiana and grew up in an itinerant farming family. As an adult, he lived in Aberdeen, WA and reportedly struck it semi-rich in the Nome Gold Rush. He married his first wife Laura in early 1900 but months later she dumped him for a married man in Portland. He then made his way down to Oakland, where in 1902 he wed Jane Gertrude Shoemaker (1867-1926), a Reno native who had come to NorCal to be a schoolteacher. The couple had three children – the last born in 1909 – and Nathan made a name for himself as a house builder. The Corys relocated to L.A. by 1912 and lived in Florence-Graham until moving up to Genesee near Sunset four years later; Nathan constructed no fewer than eleven homes in the surrounding Spaulding Square neighborhood. The Corys’ youngest daughter Jean Cory Beall (1909-1978) would later become an accomplished artist.