Named for Christian Ganahl (1835-1922), an Austrian-born wood merchant whose Ganahl Lumber stores still operate in Southern California today. Ganahl immigrated to America in 1854 and first settled in St. Louis, where he prospered in both the timber and leather trades. Along with his family and his business partner John J. Schallert (1854-1895), Ganahl came to Los Angeles in 1884 to take over the John Bryson Lumber Company at 1st and Alameda. Ganahl, Schallert, Charles W. Atwood, and James W. Browning then purchased a chunk of land from Walter Mathews, Charles Fickett, and Levi Breed in 1887 and opened it as the Ganahl tract later that year. (They subdivided the land into residential lots; there were no lumber yards here.) Ganahl Street was part of that 1887 tract although its original stretch between Wabash and Brooklyn (now Cesar Chavez) was absorbed into Fickett Street in 1926.
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