Named for Exposition Park. When the park opened in 1872, it was called “Agricultural Park” and this street was known as Santa Monica Avenue. (It was then the main road – a dusty, bumpy ride across a vacant landscape – to Santa Monica.) The park was designed as sort of a permanent county fair, with a farmers market and animal races. Gambling and saloons came to lend it a seedy air, however, so on December 17th, 1910, the park was rechristened – in a Masonic ceremony! – Exposition Park, to be filled with museums, a rose garden, and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. This street was renamed two years later upon the suggestion of French-born civil engineer Felix Viole (1856-1924), who drew several official maps of Los Angeles.
Find it on the map:
