“Don Julián” was the Mexican cognomen of William Workman (1802-1876), the Englishman who with John A. Rowland acquired Rancho La Puente in 1842 and soon built himself an adobe here – nearly a century before this street was named in his honor. (The earliest reference I found to Don Julian Road was in 1939.) Workman experienced both his rise and his fall in this very house, which he remodeled just a few years before his suicide. The house still stands next to that of Workman’s grandson Walter P. Temple (“La Casa Nueva”) and is open to the public as the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum. Spanish speakers may wonder why Workman’s first name was Spanishized to “Julián” instead of “Guillermo”, which is the correct Spanish variant of “William”. I haven’t the foggiest.
Find it on the map:
