You don’t have to be a Shakespeare scholar to get the reference – but what’s the story behind these two streets? That is the question. I can tell you that they were developed separately: Stratford Avenue in 1904 and Avon Place in 1909. The former was laid out on the Stratford tract, owned by Union Oil cofounder Wallace L. Hardison and his grandnephew Charles C. Teague, future head of Sunkist. Both Maine-born and Santa Paula-based, these men had no literary backgrounds and their tract’s advertisements made no allusions to the bard, so I suspect they chose “Stratford” simply because it sounded upscale. Avon Place was born on a small tract owned by Charles B. Ingram, an Iowa transplant. In 1923, not long before he and his wife passed away, he built them a home on Fletcher and Oak that bore a passing resemblance to Shakespeare’s birthplace, but that was probably just coincidental: it’s not like Tudor-style houses were in short supply back then. I think he was just being cute by adding Avon Place to Stratford Ave.
Find it on the map:
