Leslie Coombs “L.C.” Brand (1859-1925) didn’t found Glendale, but he made a city out of it. Born in Florissant, MO, a suburb of St. Louis, Brand worked for the Randolph County Recorder of Deeds in Moberly, MO when he was 20. This led him to the lucrative field of securing land titles for property owners, which made him rich. As a young widower, Brand came to Los Angeles in late 1886 at the start of the real estate boom. The boom went bust and he then spent the early 1890s in Texas, where he met his second wife Mary Louise Dean. Although Brand lived in San Antonio, it’s said that his visits to Galveston and its wide streets inspired him: when he returned to California c. 1896, he envisioned such streets for the sleepy hamlet of Glendale (population: 300), which would soon become his fiefdom. He invested heavily in the town, buying up land and bringing in electricity, water, telephones, and railroads. In 1903, Brand widened the former N Street and rechristened it Brand Boulevard. It became Glendale’s new main drag. The following year, as train service reached this street, the Brands moved into their iconic “castle” Miradero, built by brother-in-law Nathaniel Dryden. L.C. Brand died of cancer in 1925, right after donating 800 acres of mountain land to Glendale.
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