This 1922 street surely honors Frank Olin Evans (1867-1939), brother-in-law of landowner Andrew Hargis, since I found no other Olins in Hargis’s orbit. Evans was born in Mendota, IL to English immigrants. He studied telegraphy and briefly ran a bakery in Grand Island, NE (where his sister Mabel lived with Hargis) but relocated to Des Moines, IA by 1895 to be a sales rep for the Chicago-based Story & Clark Piano Company. While climbing that firm’s corporate ladder – he ultimately became its general manager – Evans also established his own brand, the F.O. Evans Piano Company. In 1913, he and his wife Nettie (1876-1935) left Des Moines for the Windy City. Eight years later, upon his early retirement from the piano biz, he took Nettie and their six-year-old daughter Barbara to Los Angeles, where he got into real estate and washing machine(!) sales.
Find it on the map:
