Pasadena subdivider Charles Moses Skillen (1838-1925) laid out this street in 1885. (Tiny Skillen Way lurks nearby; it’s essentially a parking lot.) An 1895 book on Pasadena history stated that Skillen, a New York native who lived in Ohio before settling in Pasadena in 1880, named the street after Cleveland, Ohio’s own Euclid Avenue, which at the time was renowned across the U.S. as “Millionaires’ Row”. There are several Euclid-themed streets in Los Angeles County; some may likewise copy Cleveland’s famous thoroughfare and some may directly honor Euclid, the ancient Greek mathematician. A blurb in the 1888 Cleveland Leader offered the most plausible explanation for the latter: Euclid was the “patron saint” of surveyors, including those (led by Gen. Moses Cleaveland) who plotted Ohio’s Cleveland and Euclid townsites in 1796.
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