Named in 1922 after Cattaraugus County in western New York, presumably by some homesick developer. The street’s original tract map listed William A. Dunn and Alma F. Dunn as mortgagees; both hailed from Bloomington, IL, so there’s no Cattaraugus connection there, although the “F” in Alma’s name stood for Fay, which might be the source for Fay Avenue. For what it’s worth, Will Dunn was a crony of Culver City founder Harry H. Culver. Now back to Cattaraugus: the name is derived from the Seneca Iroquois language and is said to mean “bad-smelling banks”, referring to the rotten egg stink of hydrogen sulfide wafting off the banks of New York’s Cattaraugus Creek. Not that you asked, but the smell may come from barite minerals dissolving in said creek’s groundwater.
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