Westgate was a 1905 townsite so-named because it abutted the west gate of “Soldiers’ Home” – today’s VA campus. (That gate is still there at present-day Bringham Avenue.) 700 acres in size, Westgate was owned by the Santa Monica Land and Water Company, whose officers included ubiquitous Santa Monica developer Robert C. Gillis (see Adelaide Drive); Roy Jones, whose father Senator John P. Jones cofounded Santa Monica; and Jones’s cousin Harry Gorham, who has a namesake street here. The district of Westgate was annexed by the City of Los Angeles in 1916; to avoid duplications with existing L.A. streets, Westgate’s Chelsea Street (below Montana) and Jefferson Avenue (above Montana) were renamed Westgate Avenue in 1917.
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