The original Preuss Road is now known as Robertson Boulevard. The current Preuss Road, one block east, is named for the same guy: Edward Anthony Preuss Jr. (c. 1850-1932). Or perhaps it really honors his father, a German-born doctor who died in 1877. Or the family as a whole. The Preusses moved from Louisville to Los Angeles in 1868; here Junior would become a chemist, drugstore owner (with father-in-law John Schumacher), brewer, rancher, amateur gymnast, postmaster… and, it seems, the black sheep of the family: his name was excluded from both his mother’s and his sister’s obituaries. Anyway, not long after arriving in L.A., the Preusses set up a ranch near Pico and Robertson as co-owners of the massive Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas, where they and other German investors – most of whom resided in San Francisco – hoped to establish a town called “Santa Maria”. That was in 1869, when the original Preuss Road was named. The town never materialized and in 1881 German immigrants Hammel and Denker bought the rancho, which you now know as Beverly Hills. Edward Preuss Jr. was abroad when his namesake street was rechristened Robertson Blvd. in 1926; his reaction was not recorded. Someone threw him a bone, however, by changing the newish Thom Street to Preuss Road. Fortunate footnote: In 1874, Edward Preuss Sr. won $18,750 in the Louisville Lottery – back when a large house in Los Angeles cost $2,500.
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