In 1873, L.A. city councilman Prudent Beaudry, who would be mayor in a year, named Bunker Hill Avenue on a tract of his that was indeed located atop DTLA’s Bunker Hill. Does that mean he named the hill as well? I’d bet on it, although there’s no incontrovertible evidence. The street was first mentioned on December 13th of that year in a glowing news article about Beaudry’s tract. (It’s so glowing that it reads like paid promotion.) The first mention of Bunker Hill itself? One day later, in a similarly glowing article about the tract. The latter made it clear that L.A.’s Bunker Hill was indeed named after Boston’s, the site of a famous 1775 Revolutionary War battle. P.S. You may have noticed that present-day Bunker Hill Ave. isn’t on Bunker Hill at all, but in Chinatown! Beaudry originally laid it out from 2nd to 4th Street, between Hope and Charity (now Grand), but that original section was wiped out in the 1960s along with the remaining houses of old Bunker Hill. The existing Bunker Hill Ave. was born as Montreal Street – named either by Beaudry or his brother Victor, French Canadians both.
Find it on the map:
