Named in 1893 for Willoughby Cole (1857-1912), an attorney who practiced law with his father, former U.S. Senator Cornelius Cole, founder of the Hollywood-adjacent community of Colegrove (see Cole Avenue). Willoughby Cole was born in Sacramento, grew up in San Francisco, and moved down to Colegrove in 1888. His first wife Maude divorced him in 1900 after two years of marriage, claiming that he “failed to provide”, so he married his second wife Geraldine in 1904. Their only child Willoughby Jr. (1907-1945) was apparently mentally handicapped: he never worked or went to school, and his death certificate stated that he had been “feeble minded” and “epileptic” since birth. (Things weren’t so delicately put back then.) Willoughby Cole Sr. died just one month before his 55th birthday due to renal tuberculosis.
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