Monrovia’s main drag isn’t just named after the plant – it also honors the city’s first daughter. Myrtle Avenue was laid out in 1886, not long after William N. Monroe established Monrovia. A 1911 article in the Monrovia Daily News credited Monroe’s wife Mary, working with cofounders John D. Bicknell and Edward F. Spence, with arranging botanically-themed “avenues” across the fledging town. Myrtle was also surely a tribute to the Monroes’ 13-year-old daughter. Born in Iowa, Myrtle Mignonette Monroe (1873-1960) spent her early childhood in several locales due to her father’s work as a railroad contractor but mostly grew up in Monrovia. In 1893, she married Bruce Crawford Bailey (1866-1955), an actuary who worked for another railroad contractor in Zacatecas, Mexico. The Baileys resided in Mexico for many years before resettling in Monrovia in 1922; their house was on North Myrtle Ave. The couple, who had no children, spend their last years together in Lake Elsinore but Myrtle came back to Monrovia in 1957. P.S. The Monroes had a second daughter, Mabelle (1883-1963), who alas has no namesake street.
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