The city of El Segundo was born in 1911 as a Standard Oil company town. Standard had just purchased 840 acres from George H. Peck Jr. for their second oil refinery in California – their first, at Point Richmond, opened in 1902 – and el segundo is Spanish for “the second”, so there you have it. The name is credited to Virginia Wright Hanna, wife of Standard Oil general manager Richard Judd Hanna, who helped lay out the town. (I believe Hanna named Virginia Street in honor of his wife, while Franklin Avenue is for his hometown of Franklin, PA.) This thoroughfare was initially two roads: Ballona Avenue in El Segundo and Hawthorne; 128th Street in Los Angeles. Both were changed to El Segundo Boulevard in 1931.
Find it on the map:
