Charles Harvey Watts (c. 1849-1904) was an Ohioan who came to SoCal in 1874 and bought property in the brand new “Indiana Colony”, which would soon adopt a new name: Pasadena. His 1875 marriage to Millie Locke (c. 1854-1925) marked Pasadena’s first wedding; when their son Harvey was born the following year, he was Pasadena’s first baby boy. (Charley and Millie would have three more sons.) Watts also co-owned a massive subdivision where Eagle Rock now lies, but by 1889 he and his family had relocated to a large farm south of Los Angeles. They gave some of their land to the Pacific Electric Railway in 1902, which was when the area started going by “Watts”. (Watts Station, built in 1904, still stands.) Sadly, Charley Watts’s alcoholism and financial troubles got the best of him: In August 1904, he checked into the St. Elmo Hotel in DTLA, drank heavily for a week, then swallowed potassium cyanide. And just when his namesake town was starting to pick up steam. Watts Avenue was named in 1905; Watts itself was annexed by the City of L.A. in 1926.
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