Named in 1905 for Harry Motson Gorham (1859-1951), then-president of the Santa Monica Land and Water Company, developers of Westgate. He got his job the old-fashioned way: his uncle, Senator John Percival Jones (1829-1912), had cofounded Santa Monica and still owned half the place. Gorham was born in Cleveland, where his British grandparents had settled. While he was growing up there, his uncle was getting big out West in both mining and politics – first in California and then in Nevada, where the Comstock silver lode made him rich. Jones was elected U.S. Senator for Nevada in 1873; four years later, Gorham moved to Gold Hill, NV to manage his uncle’s mines. Jones had established Santa Monica by then and was splitting his time between there and Washington. Gorham finally left Gold Hill for SoCal in 1903 and would eventually preside over the Bank of Santa Monica, another of his uncle’s ventures. From the “L.A. Is a Small Town” Department: Gorham’s sister Bessie married Schuyler Cole, son of another U.S. Senator (and Hollywood developer), and his son Hal married the sister of Cloverfield‘s namesake.
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