First laid out in 1922 between Fair and Vineland on a tract owned by Irvine Willard Biggar (1865-1942), who had been selling real estate around Sun Valley (then called Roscoe) and Burbank for a decade. (Born in New York, he spent most of his pre-California life around Kansas City.) The mortgagee was Jennie Ann Patton (née Richardson, 1869-1951). Arminta was a woman’s name in those days, albeit an uncommon one: I found only five Armintas in early 1920s city directories, with probably a few more unlisted. Certainly neither Biggar nor Patton had any in their families. But get this: Biggar’s parents Thomas and Margaret hailed from County Antrim, (Northern) Ireland – and “Arminta” is nearly an anagram of “Antrim”. Dismiss this theory as crackpot if you wish, but until I come across a more plausible etymology, I posit that Biggar was honoring his ancestral homeland with a little wordplay.
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