Named for El Monte pioneer Prescott Franklin Cogswell (1859-1960), who lived on this very road from the 1880s until the end of his long life. Born in Ontario, Canada, Cogswell came to Tustin in 1884, married his first wife Janie (1860-1898, born in India to English missionaries), then settled in El Monte by 1888, where he established one of the county’s first walnut groves with G.H. Ferris, R.H. Gilman, and B.F. Maxson. Far more than just a farmer, Cogswell was an ambitious politician who was elected to the CA State Assembly in 1906, the CA State Senate in 1912, and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors in 1918, where he served for eight years. (He lost his last reelection bid while the entire Board was on trial for conspiracy and embezzlement; the charges were dismissed.) Cogswell fathered five children and lived to be 100, even surviving his second wife Isabel (1898-1943) despite her being nearly thirty years his junior. Cogswell Road was named in 1929 when the Cogswells subdivided some of their property.
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