Wyandotte Street

Although Wyandotte (pronounced “dot”, not “dote” or “dotty”) originated as a Native American tribe and later became a place name across the U.S. – in particular Wyandotte County in Kansas, where that state’s Kansas City lies – I believe this street actually honors a breed of chicken. It’s hard to say for sure, as it was named in 1917 by city ordinance and not by a private developer, so there’s no way to track down an individual who might have had a special reason for the name. (It was born plain old E Street; after Los Angeles annexed the Valley in 1915, civil engineers had to give it a unique new moniker.) But poultry colonies were ubiquitous in the pre-suburban SFV (see Runnymede Street and Leghorn Avenue), and Wyandottes were among the breeds being raised here, so I suspect engineers had fowl intentions when they named this street. P.S. The Wyandotte chicken was known as the “American Sebright” until 1883, when the American Poultry Association officially rebranded it.