Carroll Park was laid out in 1902 by John J. Carroll (c. 1853-1937), who would skip town just four years later. In the 1890s, the Irish-born Carroll and his English wife Jane (c. 1868-1938) lived in Singapore, where Carroll managed “the largest tinworks in the world” (apparently the Straits Settlement Trading Company). Jane had health issues, so the couple and their baby daughter Irene started visiting temperate SoCal on a regular basis in 1896; second child Jack was born during one such visit. They eventually settled in Long Beach in 1902, buying 30+ acres and building a home at 4th and Junipero. Carroll laid out two tracts that year: the Carroll tract, with its Malaysian-themed Kinta and Larut streets, and Carroll Park, with circular avenues dubbed Huerta (Spanish for “orchard”), Hechizur (a misspelling of hechizar, Spanish for “to bewitch”), Tingling (supposedly in honor of Theosophist Katherine Tingley, but I found no proof; for all I know, Tingling was the family dog), and Carrollton. For reasons unclear, the Carrolls left LB for Apple Valley in 1906 and set up a turkey farm. They moved again around 1914 – this time to the Riverside County town of Mecca, where they grew dates. In 1910, with the Carrolls now gone, Long Beach bureaucrats changed Kinta and Larut streets to Wisconsin and Molino avenues, respectively; the following year, they changed Huerta to Carroll Park West, Hechizur to Carroll Park South, Tingling to Carroll Park East, and Carrollton to Carroll Park North.
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