I think I’ve solved the mystery behind this street’s name – but there’s a snag. There was a Myra Avenue laid out (by 1895) west of Hoover. It was named for Myra Lucilla McCarthy (née Chesebro, 1847-1938), matriarch of a powerful real estate family. Hailing from Oswego, NY, Myra, her husband James, and their kids moved to Los Angeles in 1886 and began developing properties here and in San Francisco. Although she had essentially co-run the company for fifty years, Myra had to outlive both James and their son E. Avery before she could officially assume the presidency in 1935. (In terms of street names, the McCarthys’ biggest legacy is Melrose Avenue.) She herself owned the land where that earlier Myra Avenue appeared, so we know she was its namesake – but that street was absorbed into Lexington in 1911. Our current Myra Avenue was laid out in 1906 just south of Effie by a totally different landowner: Beauregard Lee Bates. He obviously named nearby Bates Avenue after himself, but with zero Myras in his family, I can’t say for sure if his Myra Ave. was meant to be a clumsy extension of the original Myra Ave. or if he named it for some unknown person – and the close proximity of two different Myra avenues was just a coincidence. The latter seems unlikely, but the 1910 city directory listed them as separate streets, so who knows?
Los Angeles Street Names – their origins, their histories, their meanings