Do Ferdinand and Isabella avenues refer to Spanish royalty? Most definitely – although we’ll have to go back in time and look a little further south to understand why. The two streets were first laid out in 1927 on a 491 acre tract owned by sisters Mary Cates and Edna Bagg, who in 1911 inherited the land from their father John D. Bicknell, a big-time attorney and town builder (he cofounded Monrovia and Azusa). Ferdinand and Isabella shared the tract’s Spanish theme with various “Vias”: Acosta, Altamira, Breve, Campo, Daviso (now defunct), Paseo, San Carlo, San Clemente, and San Delarro. In the middle of the tract: a brand new golf club, then called Montebello Park and now known as Bella Verde. Ferdinand and Isabella were each originally just one block long, laid out north of Via Campo. Perhaps these regal names were meant to “crown” the tract. They have since been eradicated by the 10 freeway and what you see now in Monterey Park are the avenues’ 1929 extensions. At any rate, namesakes King Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452-1516) and Queen Isabella I of Castile (1451-1504) unified Spain with their 1469 marriage, financed Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage, authorized the Spanish Inquisition, and so on.
Find it on the map:
