Alla Road owes its name to a bunch of duck hunters. Back in the 1890s, this part of town was called “La Ballona” and it was a wide open landscape dotted with marshes and ponds – ideal for duck hunting. So in 1895, a group called the Alla Gun Club leased 700 acres here, which they used every duck season (October 1st-January 31st) until 1902. That was when Sherman and Clark laid streetcar tracks across the land to serve a brand new development called Playa del Rey, which they co-owned. The Alla boys had to move on: they rebranded themselves the Pacific Gun Club and leased new hunting grounds near Newport Beach. As a sort of tribute, Sherman and Clark built an “Alla Station” on their new line. It lent its name to Alla Road by 1905. So why did those hunters call their club “Alla”? Well, a 1895 news article referred to them as the “Alla (wing) Gun club”, and ala – note spelling – does mean “wing” in Latin. Ducks have wings, so there you go.
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