Named for Jonathan Sayre Slauson (1829-1905), capitalist, benefactor, and founder of Azusa. Slauson originally practiced law in his home state of New York, then headed west in 1864 to run the mining town of Austin, NV. He lived in San Francisco for a spell before settling in L.A. in 1874; that was the year he founded the Los Angeles County Bank, which he oversaw until 1883. After that, he divided his time between his civic work and his vast property holdings – thousands of acres in the former Rancho Azusa de Dalton, where Slauson established the town of Azusa in 1887, and thousands more south of L.A. city limits, where Slauson Avenue was laid out and named by 1886. J.S. Slauson was as famous for his philanthropy as he was for his business affairs: he donated generously to churches, the Salvation Army, the YMCA, and Barlow Sanatorium. Also a member of the Board of Education and the Chamber of Commerce, Slauson was so entrenched in L.A.’s growth that when he died, his body lay in state at City Hall, where thousands of mourners paid their last respects.
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