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 1,900 streets – and growing. See FAQ for more information.

Featured Major Street

McBean Parkway

Santa Clarita

Named for Atholl McBean (1879-1968), whose wife Margaret (1884-1972) was the granddaughter of Henry Mayo Newhall. McBean was a native San Franciscan whose father had cofounded the Gladding, McBean ceramics company. He married Margaret Newhall in 1909. McBean eventually took control of her family’s Newhall Land and Farming Company and saved it from ruin after the 1928 St. Francis Dam collapse (see Mulholland Drive) and the 1929 stock market crash – first by leasing Newhall Ranch to the Barnsdall Oil Company, who struck black gold there in the late 1930s, then later by converting the property into residential real estate. Thus was born the planned community of Valencia. California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), an avant-garde outlier in the middle of SoCal suburbia, opened its McBean Parkway doors in 1970. The school was the vision of Walt Disney, who died before groundbreaking.

Featured Offbeat Street

Towne Avenue

Carson, DTLA, South L.A.

Named in 1887 for Alban Nelson Towne (1829-1895), then general manager of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Towne was a Massachusetts native who made his home in San Francisco, but the men who were subdividing Joseph W. Wolfskill‘s old DTLA orchard donated 13 acres at 4th and Alameda to the Southern Pacific for a new station and thought to honor its top brass with street names. (Note that today’s Stanford Avenue, named for SPRR president Leland Stanford, was initially called Ruth Avenue – presumably for Wolfskill’s daughter – while the original Stanford Avenue was later renamed Crocker Street, a nod to another SPRR exec.) The Southern Pacific was ready to upgrade from its inelegant River Station, located at present-day Los Angeles State Historic Park, and happily accepted. Its Arcade Passenger Depot opened at 4th and Alameda in 1888, only to be replaced in 1914 by Central Station right next door. Both buildings are now long gone.