Named in 1889 for Anton Bixel (1822-1900) and his wife Elizabeth (née Rupp, 1841-1937), who lived on this very street. The Bixels, German immigrants both, met and married out West. Anton had originally immigrated to Cleveland, where in 1850 he was united in marriage to Fanny Leindecker(?). He apparently abandoned her and their two sons when he set up a brewery in Columbia, CA, which he later sold to his brother Joseph. (Fanny finally secured her divorce in 1859 – three years after first filing for it – and yet her tombstone curiously reads “wife of Anton Bixel”.) Anton married Elizabeth Rupp at some point in the 1860s and the two moved to Elko, NV in 1869, where Anton sold beer, wine, and liquor. The Bixels started buying up land in Los Angeles in 1885 and settled here permanently in 1887 to take advantage of the city’s big real estate boom. The boom went bust; the Bixels stayed on.
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