What I know for sure: Presentación Urquidez de López (c. 1842-1908) named this street in 1905 on the Lopez Villa tract. Other details are significantly hazier – for instance, she mothered anywhere between 12 and 21 children, depending on who you ask. Carmen Avenue memorializes her eldest, but all I can tell you about José de Carmen López (1862-1895) is that he was a bachelor who died of tuberculosis shortly before his 33rd birthday. Mamá’s story has a bit more meat to it: she was born at Rancho San José de Buenos Ayres – today’s Westwood – to Tomás and Ramona (née Vejar) Urquidez. A legal dispute forced her family to relocate to Rancho La Brea around 1853 and the adobe they built near present-day Franklin and Outpost was a local landmark until it was torn down in 1924. Presentación married Claudio Tranquilino López (1836-1896) in 1861 and stuck around to witness her rural hills turn into Hollywood. In 1879, a mysterious fellow named Mariano Tejarino sold her 80 acres of land here for just $5; according to Presentación’s obituary, it was his thanks for her nursing him back to health. (Besides the land, I found no other records of his existence.) She’d sold off all but six acres by the time she died, reportedly while laughing and smoking cigarettes with friends.
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