Although this street was named in 1924 on the Mesmer City development, its namesake wouldn’t become apparent until an additional tract was laid out in 1927. The person who notarized said tract: D.S. Hammack. This would be Daniel Stewart Hammack (1883-1953), attorney for the tract’s mortgagee Joseph Mesmer. Hammack was born in Burlington, IA, where his father Daniel Marion Hammack (1848-1918) had his own legal practice. The family moved to San Diego in 1887 and then to Los Angeles in 1900. Hammack graduated from Occidental College in 1905 – one of only eleven grads that year – attended Princeton, studied law at his father’s firm, and passed the CA bar in 1907. He partnered with his father (who knew the powerful Joe Mesmer through Democratic Party circles) until the old man’s death, then worked with several other partners, including his own son Dan Jr.
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