This street was established in 1911 as Lenkill Avenue and renamed Bagley in 1921. I haven’t been able to suss out who or what inspired the new moniker: there are simply too many Bagleys to choose from. And since the change was a city ordinance, I couldn’t trace the name back to any tract or developers. But if I had to pick a potential namesake, I’d lean toward Howard King Bagley (1888-1966). A bookkeeper for the Santa Fe Railroad who later made it big in oil and real estate, he was exactly the sort of well-connected capitalist that Los Angeles named streets after. Note that Culver City’s Main Street was originally several blocks longer; when city boundaries changed, all but 320 feet of it became Lenkill/Bagley within the City of L.A.
Find it on the map:
