In case you’ve ever wondered, as I have, where some Californian place names originated, here is a couple of pages from “The Romantic Road to California’s Yesterdays” which was a book was published by the California Rotogravure Corp in around 1929.
A glossary of California Place Names” from “The Romantic Road to California’s Yesterdays” published by the California Rotogravure Corp, circa 1929
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Some of these are pretty obvious (saint names), but others are places I’ve never heard of. I wonder if they were renamed at some point?
San Jose = Saint Joe the captain of Exxon Valdez?
There’s at least two older books that cover names of Los Angeles roads that changed from their early designators.
Coalinga? Buehler? Buehler? Alright, it was “Coaling A” for railroad useage.
Like El Segundo was “the second” Standard Oil refinery on the west coast.
I’ve often wondered what El Segundo was the second one of.
It was really obvious when I was a kid. Whenever we drove through El Segundo we kids would hold our noses and moan about stinky refineries.
And the location of a very infamous “cop killing”. But the small townsite was a gem of old California places. What have they done to it since?