Rossmoyne is a nod to Erskine Mayo Ross (1845-1928), the attorney-turned-judge who cofounded Glendale in 1887. (See Ross Street.) Indeed, it was the name that Ross and his first wife Inez (1853-1907) gave their fruit and olive ranch on this land, which Ross acquired in 1871. (The ranch’s size remains a matter of dispute: some say it was 1,100 acres, some say 700.) Although “Rossmoyne” obviously alludes to the Ross surname, Erskine and Inez were surely inspired by Rossmoyne, a romance novel published by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (under the nom de plume “The Duchess”) in 1883. The Rosses may have christened their ranch that very year; the earliest reference I found was in 1889. Regardless, the name simply didn’t exist before Hungerford coined it. Rossmoyne Avenue was born in 1923 on the Rossmoyne tract, developed on part of the old ranch by Lon Haddock and Alex Nibley.
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