The Huntington Palisades tract was mapped out in 1926 by civil engineer Willis Waugh Williams (1884-1969). “Huntington” refers to the late railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington, who had purchased this land years earlier during his failed bid to make Santa Monica the port of Los Angeles. His son Archer sold it to developers the same year Williams designed the tract. Williams was a Texan who made his name as a mining engineer while living in El Paso. Before moving to Los Angeles with his family in 1924, he spent a lot of time in Mexico’s mining districts and thus several Huntington Palisades “drives” take their names from those districts, including Almoloya, Chapala, Frontera (which should be Fronteras), La Cumbre, Ocampo, Ramos, and Toyopa (a lost silver mine of legend that’s spelled “Tayopa” nowadays). Altata and Alva drives probably take their names from American mines, while other streets have generic or unspecified Spanish sources: Camarosa, Corona del Mar, El Cerco, and Pampas Ricas. As for Alma Real Drive? Williams named that one after a singer.
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