Although Orcutt Drive wasn’t named until 1960, it honors the man who subdivided this part of Montebello back in 1912-1915: William Warren Orcutt (1869-1942), president of the La Merced Heights Land & Water Company. Born in Minnesota and raised in Santa Paula, CA, Orcutt made his name – and his fortune – as a petroleum geologist at Unocal/Union Oil. Fossil enthusiasts can thank him for being the first to realize, in 1901, that the bones found in the La Brea Tar Pits were invaluable Ice Age relics. (The Pleistocene coyote was named canis orcutti in his honor.) Unocal can thank Orcutt for discovering and mapping its oil fields: the city of Orcutt, north of Santa Barbara, was originally a Unocal company town. William and Mary Orcutt (1873-1972) themselves owned a ranch in the west San Fernando Valley – it’s now a public park – where Mary led the charge in changing the name of Owensmouth to Canoga Park.
Find it on the map:
