Silsby Morse Spalding (1886-1949) was the first mayor of Beverly Hills (1927-1929), so it’s a no-brainer that the city would honor him with a street. Yet Spalding Drive was named more than three years before he was elected! Spalding, a young stockbroker originally from Minneapolis, married Caroline Canfield in 1911. Her father was Beverly Hills cofounder Charles A. Canfield, yet that’s not what won Spalding an eponymous street either. In fact it was for his involvement with the Beverly Hills Speedway, which operated on this site from 1920 to 1924. Several Speedway officers had streets named after them: see Durant Drive for more. Spalding, who also maintained oil, ranching, and aviation interests, was a big booster of Beverly Hills: as chairman of the board of trustees, he appointed Will Rogers the city’s first – and obviously honorary – mayor in 1926, a publicity stunt that made BH world famous.
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