Lucien and Stockwell streets were named in 1905 by Lucien Fremont Stockwell (1859-1938), a cattleman and butcher. The fourth of John and Abigail Stockwell’s seven kids, Lucien was born in Minnesota but was brought to Northern California in an oxcart when he was just 6 months old. His family then came down to Compton in 1870 to set up a ranch. (Griffith Compton himself would sell them at least 100 acres.) Abigail perished within a year; John held on until 1888. After his death, most of the Stockwell kids, now fully grown, remained in Compton. The piece of land where Lucien Stockwell would name streets for himself was a bone of contention between him and his neighbor, farmer George Rhoades. Rhoades claimed that he had sold Stockwell 50 acres at a discount and that Stockwell still slacked on his payments, so Rhoades sicced a lawyer on him, which angered Stockwell so much that in 1899 he attacked Rhoades’s 13-year-old son Charles with a dead barracuda(!). Charles survived; the feud continued. Stockwell and his wife Cora, who were wed in 1887, had eight kids. Their sons ran the Stockwell Bros. Market in Compton until the 1940s.
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