Named for landowner Cora Lower Leland (1852-1931). Born in Cicero, NY (outside of Syracuse), Cora Lower was the only child of a shoemaker and his wife. She spent her whole life in Cicero until 1887, when she married Rev. J. Frank Leland (1854-1921), a recently ordained pastor in the Universalist Church. They would then live in Augusta, ME and Herkimer, NY before coming to Los Angeles in 1899. Four years later, J. Frank retired from the pulpit and Cora bought a 5 acre orange grove at the southwest corner of Sunset and Vine. She subdivided most of it in 1906, naming Leland Way in the process, but kept half an acre for herself and her husband at Sunset and Vine. The Lelands moved to a smaller home on Kenmore near Sunset in early 1921; J. Frank died months later and Cora remained there for the rest of her life.