Is this street name just a fowl joke? Cantlay was hatched in 1923 – just east of Woodley and right in the middle of a bunch of chicken ranches. (Poultry was big business in the Valley back then: see Runnymede and Fullerfarm.) As such, many suspected that the anonymous namer meant it as a lighthearted reference to hens that “can’t lay” eggs. Several news articles quoted ranchers along Cantlay insisting that their hens were in fact quite productive; however, none of those articles cited an alternative namesake for Cantlay. Los Angeles had one known family by that surname in the 1920s – their most prominent member, Richard (1890-1964), would eventually run a large trucking company – but there’s no indication that these Cantlays owned any Valley land, and Richard was but a humble truck driver in 1923.
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