When it was laid out in 1905, this street was dubbed Rosecrans Avenue. It was most likely a nod to developer Walter Rose, whose Realty Trust Company owned this tract. (The nearby stretch of Huntington Drive was called Rose Road back then.) It was renamed in 1916, a few months after L.A. annexed El Sereno, because there was already a Rosecrans Avenue within L.A. city limits and duplicate street names were frowned upon. Someone must have figured that “Rosemead” was close enough to “Rosecrans”. The new name was surely inspired by the city of Rosemead, some six miles east, which took its own name from early SGV landowner Leonard John Rose – no relation to Walter.
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