Blackwelder Street

Charles Guy Blackwelder (1879-1974) was a salesman for realtor Carlin G. Smith in 1912 when Smith named this street on his Du Ray Place tract. Blackwelder, who often went by his middle name, was born and raised in Litchfield, IL, moved to Los Angeles  by 1906, worked in real estate and insurance, and was running a used car lot in 1917 when he married his first wife Agnes. The union lasted less than three years and he relocated his car business to Des Moines, IA. In 1932, Blackwelder was back in SoCal and had a son – Charles Guy Jr. – with a later wife, Jeanette. (She was likely his third spouse: there was another Mrs. Charles Guy Blackwelder in 1922; she attempted to drown herself in Long Beach and was declared insane.) The 1940 census listed Blackwelder as a prune salesman; in 1950, a shoe salesman. He was visiting Junior in Carmichael, a suburb of Sacramento, when he passed away at 95.