You’d think whoever laid this street through Montrose just called it “Rosemont” as a play on words. But here’s the rub: I found a tract map – surveyed in December 1910 and recorded in April 1911 – that has Rosemont Avenue clearly labeled at its present-day intersection with El Caminito. Montrose itself was “officially” named in December 1912 in a contest staged by developers Robert A. Walton and J. Frank Walters (see Montrose Avenue). So was Rosemont Avenue implausibly added to the tract map after 1912? Or did it in fact predate Montrose by two years – and thus the contest to “name” Montrose was just bogus publicity, the developers already having a name in mind? The truth remains elusive. I can at least tell you that the tract’s owners were Henry J. Kramer (1863-1936) and his first wife Louise Helen Kramer (1863-1937), who bought the land from Walton and Walters. Henry’s claim to fame was establishing one of L.A.’s first dancing schools in 1889.
Find it on the map:
