The most popular avocado in the world, the Hass, gets its name from Rudolph Hass (1892-1952), a Pasadena postman who planted the first tree on his La Habra Heights property in 1926. But he bought said tree – which, by happy accident, was naturally cross-pollinated – as a sapling from Whittier’s Albert Raymond “Bert” Rideout (1872-1945), for whom Rideout Street is named. (The man who partnered with Hass in propagating his eponymous avocado was Harold H. Brokaw: Rideout’s brother-in-law.) Bert Rideout was born in Kansas, the son of a Presbyterian minister who moved the family to Lake County, CA in 1882, then to Oregon in 1888, and finally to Whittier in 1896. The jovial Rideout worked as a sign painter, then as a berry grower, before establishing a fruit tree nursery in 1903 and leading the charge in popularizing the avocado across Southern California. He cultivated several varieties on his 1913 Rideout Heights subdivision; Rideout Way was named by 1915.
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