Named in 1907 on the Carmenita Acres tract, co-owned by Ardella E. Marquardt (1841-1907). The tract was located where Marquardt Avenue intersects with Excelsior Drive and in fact that portion of Excelsior was originally called Ardella Avenue. Our subject was born Ardella Koller in Tiffin, Ohio, where she spent most of her life. She married German-born pharmacist Jacob F. Marquardt 1839-1899) in 1862; their only child Jesse was born two years later. In 1890, after wintering in Los Angeles, Ardella bought a chunk of land northeast of Glendora. Jacob and Jesse soon purchased additional acreage there – an 1895 newspaper listed 130 acres under Marquardt ownership – and they set up a country home and orange orchard dubbed “Baldy View Ranch”. Jacob and Ardella often returned to Ohio, where Jesse ran the family drugstore until moving to L.A. in 1900 and getting into the wallpaper business. He was married thrice and had one son. It’s unclear when Ardella acquired this, her Santa Fe Springs land, but it was presumably meant only as investment property.
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