This street was first laid out in January 1888 on a never-built tract called “Cahuenga” (Hollywood was then known as the Cahuenga Valley) planned by a group of real estate speculators who had purchased the land from early settler Michael L. Yager (1837-1922) southwest of Sunset and Gardner. The tract died when the L.A. real estate bubble popped a few months later, but its promotional map adorned its Fountain Avenue with two roundabouts encircling what do indeed appear to be ornamental fountains – hence the name. (These imagined fountains were probably where Fountain Ave. now crosses Crescent Heights and Curson, respectively.) The stretch of Fountain east of Western Avenue was called Benefit Street until 1912. Showbiz postscript: There’s no proof that Bette Davis ever said, when asked what advice she’d give young actresses in Hollywood, “Take Fountain.” That quote started making the rounds in the late 1990s and was also attributed to Elizabeth Taylor, Tallulah Bankhead, and Mae West. There’s no proof that they said it either.
Los Angeles Street Names – their origins, their histories, their meanings