While Cattaraugus is a county in western New York, this street actually honors a knife company. It was christened by landowner Will A. Dunn (see Dunn Drive), who wasn’t from New York at all – in fact he hailed from Bloomington, IL. But he headed up the West Coast sales department of the Cattaraugus Cutlery Company, manufacturer of pocket knives, straight razors, etc., and the firm was based in Little Valley, NY – right in the heart of Cattaraugus County. Dunn and his bride Alma Fay (see Fay Avenue) settled in Los Angeles around 1920; Dunn obviously retained some fondness for his former employer when he named this street two years later. The Cattaraugus Cutlery Co. was founded c. 1885 and went out of business in 1963. “Cattaraugus” itself 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.
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