As you might guess, el centro is Spanish for “the center”, and this street signified the center of retired U.S. Senator Cornelius Cole’s ranch – or at least one of the many tracts he built upon it. These tracts formed a township appropriately called Colegrove, located south of Sunset Boulevard and born while Harvey and Ida (a.k.a. Daeida) Wilcox were establishing another town called Hollywood due north. (It’s debatable who actually named Sunset, but my money’s on the Wilcoxes.) The El Centro tract and its titular avenue were set up in 1902. One of the Wilcoxes’ streets, which they optimistically dubbed Grand Avenue, would eventually be taken over by El Centro. That probably suited Sen. Cole just fine, as there was reportedly bad blood between him and Ida Wilcox.
Find it on the map:
