Brothers Earl Lott Banta (1886-1973) and George Henry Banta (1895-1980) named this street on a tract they set up in 1935. The Bantas were a farming family who first lived in Indiana, where Earl was born, then in Mesa, AZ, where George was born, then in Imperial, CA. They settled in Los Angeles in late 1909. After the Banta boys fought in WWI, both became attorneys; Earl was an associate of powerful Hollywood lawyer Neil S. McCarthy, who represented Howard Hughes for years. (A third brother, Cecil, died from liver cancer in 1915; he was just 25.) Earl, his wife Mary, and their son Arthur lived on this very land until 1932, when they moved to Leimert Park. George and his own wife Mary lived in Pasadena. Interestingly, there was a “Banta Ditch” dug out in 1867 not far from here, but I found no connection between that ditch and these Bantas.
Find it on the map:
