Clark is such a common surname that this 1917 street might honor any number of people. That said, there are two strong candidates for namesake. The first is Oliver P. Clark (1858-1932), secretary-treasurer (and cofounder) of the powerful Title Insurance & Trust Company, run by Otto Freeman Brant (1858-1922). Brant was one of the five men who ran the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Company, the Valley’s first major developer. Unlike his partners Moses Hazeltine Sherman, Harrison Gray Otis, Harry Chandler, and H.J. Whitley, Brant apparently wanted nothing named after him, so it’s possible that he deferred to his second-in-command for this street. (Clark, an Indiana native who came to L.A. in 1887, was remembered as “a very fine man but a very retiring man” by Brant’s son.) The second most likely namesake is railroad magnate/real estate developer Eli P. Clark (1847-1931), Sherman’s brother-in-law and business partner. See West Hollywood’s Clark Street for more on him.
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