City ordinance decreed that the former Railroad Street be renamed in honor of city councilman John Topham (1872-1936) in January 1917 – just weeks before Topham was found guilty of violating the Los Angeles City Charter. Whoops! At issue was a decidedly unsexy scandal: the councilman was skimming profits off of the City-required plumbers’ bonds that he was issuing through his own private company. (His total take: around $400, worth about $10,000 today.) He was promptly removed from office. Born in England, John Topham came to L.A. in 1893. He and his wife Hannah, a fellow Brit, had four kids. In 1909, eight years before his fall from grace, Topham was appointed to the Police Commission. He stepped down from that role in 1911 amidst similar accusations of misconduct… and promptly ran for City Council! He had nerve, I’ll give him that. Anyway, after leaving public service, Topham became an insurance broker and twice attempted – in vain – to get elected back onto Council. P.S. As chairman of the City’s Public Works Committee, Topham was involved in the mass renaming of Valley streets in 1916-1917 and so this street may have been his gift to himself.
Find it on the map:
