Vanowen Street

This street’s not named for anyone named Vanowen. It’s a portmanteau of Van Nuys and Owensmouth, as it was designed to be a direct route between those two early San Fernando Valley towns. “Vanowen” was coined in 1916 – some say by Los Angeles Times publisher and Valley land baron Harrison Gray Otis – before the town of Owensmouth was renamed Canoga Park. Theoretically we should now call this thoroughfare “Vancan Street”, but that just doesn’t have the same ring to it.