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 2,200 streets – and growing. See FAQ for more information.

Featured Major Street

Philadelphia Street

Whittier

As with the other Uptown roadways mapped out by Whittier’s Quaker founders in 1887, Philadelphia Street has a Quaker connection: Philadelphia, PA was originally designed as a sanctuary city for those of the Quaker faith, a.k.a. the Religious Society of Friends. English Quaker William Penn (1644-1718), who also has an honorary street here in Whittier, was granted land in the American colony in 1681. The land was dubbed Pennsylvania (“Penn’s Woods”) and Penn sailed out to establish Philadelphia there in 1682. The city’s name does indeed mean “brotherly love” in Greek and it reflected Penn’s dreams for Philadelphia as a pacifist, abolitionist utopia.

Featured Offbeat Street

Cassil Place

Hollywood

Dorothy Cassil with Buster Keaton in "The Haunted House", 1921

Newlyweds Rodney Pickett Cassil (1854-1916) and Ruth Satterly Cassil (1883-1951), along with Dorothy Louise Cassil (1902-1983), Ruth’s daughter from a previous marriage, came to Hollywood from Carthage, MO in 1911. They bought a five acre lemon orchard and Rodney opened a body shop on Highland. In the summer of 1913, Rodney sold the body shop, subdivided the orchard as Cassil Place, and then… it’s not clear what happened over the next three years, but we know Rodney did some traveling to cure his bronchitis and heart trouble. To no avail: he died in 1916. Ruth and Dorothy then decamped for Monrovia, where Ruth ran a movie theater and Dorothy pursued acting. Ruth married her theater manager in 1920 and became a housewife. It was a troubled marriage and they divorced in 1934. Dorothy had a couple of bit parts opposite Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, then married a doctor in 1923 and quit showbiz.