This 1887 street is named for Whittier cofounder Hervey Lindley (1854-1929). Lindley was born in Indiana but came of age in Minneapolis after his father moved the family there in 1866. (Milton Avenue honors Dad.) Lindley entered the lumber industry while still in his teens and in 1873 relocated to Waterloo, IA to run his own business. There he found great success – and a wife: he married Kate Camilla Owens (see Camilla Street) in 1875. The childfree couple moved to Los Angeles in 1886; the following year, Lindley partnered with fellow Quakers (Pickering, Bailey, et al) to establish the town of Whittier. Lindley was both sales agent and business manager for the town and as such was key in getting the Southern Pacific Railroad to build a spur down from Downey. He and his brother Dr. Walter Lindley (1852-1922), an important figure in his own right, also secured Whittier as the location for a reform school, which brought much-needed jobs. (Later called the Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility, it closed in 2004.) Lindley was based in L.A. but kept a “country home” in Whittier. He left both the area and his wife in the early 1900s, focusing on lumber, railway, and banking concerns in the Pacific Northwest. He married Clara Starke (née French, 1868-1915) in 1906 and spent his final years in Seattle.
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