Apparently this Highland isn’t named for its elevation. It’s named for a woman: Highland Mary Price (1865-1901). It sounds like lore, but here are the facts: Highland Mosby was an Illinois native who married Missouri-born Thomas Walter Price (1863-1940) in 1887. The two moved to Hollywood in 1888, where Thomas worked as a blacksmith. (This was pre-automobile L.A., if you can imagine.) They later adopted a girl named Myrtle Francis. Highland passed away on April 10th, 1901 from a brain tumor; by all reports, she was the first person interred at Hollywood (Forever) Cemetery. The rest is anecdotal, but just four days before Highland Price’s death, her neighbor Mary Penman Moll (see Hawthorn Ave.) allegedly asked the County to name this street in her honor, in exchange for letting it cut through Moll’s farm. The Highland Price/Highland Avenue connection was cited by the Los Angeles Times in Thomas Price’s 1940 obituary. While obituaries are not always the most reliable accounts, this one is plausible as the Prices had lived on this very road. That said, Mary Moll was the child of Scottish immigrants and might have been honoring the Scottish Highlands. Anything is possible.
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