When the Alamitos Beach townsite was laid out in 1886, its twenty north-south avenues were arranged in alphabetical order. Just over half have retained their original monikers: Alamitos, Bonito, Cerritos, Esperanza, Falcon, Gaviota, Hermosa, Junipero, Lindero, Paloma, and Redondo. As for the others: Descanso became Orange, Independencia became Cherry, Kalamazoo kept the “K” and became Kennebec, Modjeska (named after stage actress Helena Modjeska) became Molino, Naranja became Temple, Obispo became Orizaba and was then resurrected elsewhere, Quito became Coronado, and Sobrante became Loma. So what about Termino? Well, that’s a special case. Its name is original to the townsite… but its first location became Euclid Avenue and today’s Termino now lies three blocks to the east! Término is Spanish for “end”, so we may presume that the street was so named as it marked the east end of Alamitos Beach. Then came some rejiggering and Grand and Mira Mar avenues were squeezed in, so Termino was moved further east to maintain its “terminal” status. Finally, I’ve read that six additional avenues, from Union to Zingara, were later added to complete the alphabet; if true, then Ximeno is the sole survivor of that plan.
Find it on the map:
