When the first portion of Overhill Drive was laid out south of 64th Street in 1926, its name simply referred to its location south of Baldwin Hills – “over the hill” from Greater L.A. (Its developers: the dully-named Los Angeles Investment Company, led by William H. Harrison.) But then in 1939, another street was laid out one block east and christened Overdale Drive. There’s no question that this cheeky pairing was intentional: the U.S. Field Artillery March, John Philip Sousa’s World War I anthem, opens with the famous lyrics “Over hill, over dale, we will hit the dusty trail, as those caissons go rolling along.” Overdale might have been named by a nostalgic veteran (Fred Marlow and Fritz Burns, the 1939 tract’s developers, both served in WWI – see Marburn Avenue for more on them) and/or a Shakespeare enthusiast: “Over hill, over dale” is also a line in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
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