Although Pacific Electric Railway owner Henry E. Huntington (1850-1927) is the usual namesake of anything “Huntington” in L.A. County – see Huntington Drive – this street surely honors his uncle Collis Potter Huntington (1821-1900) as it was named by September 1897 (and possibly years earlier), long before Henry left San Francisco for the Southland. In fact Collis was by far the more famous Huntington at this point: he was one of the “Big Four” who built the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads – the other three being Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker. Huntington Street was named at the same time as other San Fernando streets that honor 19th century Angeleno bigwigs: Celis, Coronel, Griffith, Hewitt, Hollister, Lazard, Kalisher, Kewen, Meyer, Mott, O’Melveny, Pico, Wolfskill, Woodworth, and Workman. Collis Huntington never lived in Los Angeles, but in March 1897 he had just lost his bid to make Santa Monica the city’s shipping port. (The winners were San Pedro and Wilmington.) That’s why I suspect this street was named before his defeat.
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