Pío Pico, the last Mexican governor of California, has the fifteen-mile-long Pico Boulevard named for him. John Drake Sloat (1781-1867), Pico’s successor, only gets three blocks. Fair enough, since he only ran the territory for three weeks in 1846. Sloat, a career Navy man born in Sloatsburg(!), New York, was a key figure in the Mexican–American War: his claim to fame was raising the American flag over Monterey and announcing that California was now part of the United States. He was then appointed the territory’s interim governor – the first of six before statehood came in 1850. In memory of his service, Sloat’s name adorns streets in San Francisco, Sacramento, Monterey, and so forth. L.A.’s Commodore Sloat Drive was laid out in 1922 on the Carthay Center subdivision, its byways honoring bygone figures in California history. Why not just Sloat Drive? My guess is that “Commodore” was added to avoid postal confusion with Sloat Street in Boyle Heights.
Find it on the map:
