Glendale Avenue was named in January 1887, making it one of the first streets in its eponymous city. But it took a few years for the city itself to come by the name. It was originally called “Riverdale”, with the Riverdale tract mentioned in 1882 newspapers. For whatever reason, “Glendale” replaced it by February 1885, but the U.S. Post Office denied the community this name as there was already a Glendale in Colorado. (It cannot be overstated how instrumental the Post Office was in naming towns back then.) Residents batted around other ideas, including “Etheldene”, but Glendale remained the preferred moniker – even though the Post Office decided upon “Mason” in 1886. (No one here used it, and it was eradicated in 1891.) The Glendale townsite and its core streets were laid out in 1887 by developers led by Los Angeles mayor Cameron E. Thom, his nephew Erskine M. Ross, and Harry J. Crow. From the Etymology Department: glen means “narrow valley” and dale means “broad valley”; kind of goofy to stick them together, but it sounds nice.
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