The most unusual thing about National Boulevard is how old it is. It was named way back in 1889, when the Westside was just a sprinkling of farms, the infant town of The Palms, and “Soldiers’ Home”, where Civil War vets lived out their golden years. In fact “National” was derived from the latter’s formal name: the Pacific Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (see Veteran Avenue). This boulevard took over the former Washington Street and Santa Monica Road and went all the way to Santa Monica’s Eighth Street (now Lincoln Boulevard) before Clover Field landed on top of it in 1923.
Find it on the map:
