Named for lawyer/developer John Scott Maltman (1840-1923), who once owned hundreds of acres of present-day Silver Lake, Echo Park, and beyond. Maltman led a storied life: He was born in Scotland, orphaned at eight, escaped a kind of child slavery to be a sailor boy, walked hundreds of miles across Canada, worked in the Michigan copper mines as a teenager, fought in the Civil War (where he was wounded and held for months at the notorious Andersonville prison camp), graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1871, then moved his family to Los Angeles in 1882 due to “failing health and the urgent need of outdoor life”, in his own words. While working as a lawyer, Maltman amassed a fortune in real estate, with partners including surveyor George C. Hansen (founder of Anaheim), Ozro W. Childs, and the Shattos. Maltman Avenue took his name by 1887; he retired two years later to travel the world. After nearly 83 years of adventures, Maltman died after being struck by an automobile driven by a “Mrs. Custer of Glendale”.
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