SAN FERNANDO : Namesake of Street Aided Native Clan

Until recently, Kalisher Street was just another avenue through an unflattering side of San Fernando--a tough area trolled by gang members and troublemakers.

But in March, when the San Fernando City Council proposed changing the street’s name to honor the late labor leader Cesar Chavez, the idea angered a surprisingly large number of residents, many of them members of multi-generational San Fernando families who recall Kalisher Street in kinder days.

Suddenly, people wanted to know who Kalisher was. But nobody--not even the local historical society--seemed to recall much about the man or why the 2,500-foot stretch in the southwest quarter of town was named after him. Then, Bonnie Kalisher, a 38-year-old actress from North Hollywood, began researching.

Kalisher says information she recently unearthed may bolster the argument of those who oppose the street name change. It turns out the street was named after Wolf Kalisher--no relation to Bonnie--an influential Jewish immigrant from Poland.

According to the January, 1983, edition of the Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly, Kalisher emigrated from Poland to Los Angeles in 1885. Only 29 when he received his naturalization papers, Kalisher achieved success as a retailer and became a partner in one of Los Angeles’ first manufacturing enterprises, a tannery.

And though he never lived in the San Fernando Valley, Wolf Kalisher’s relationship with a Native American leader is what Bonnie Kalisher found most relevant to the debate over changing part of San Fernando’s history.

Kalisher was one of few merchants to employ or befriend Native Americans when lands they held were being settled by whites. According to the article, Kalisher helped Manuel Olegario, a leader of the Temecula tribe, successfully campaign to protect his people’s land in San Diego County.

“The bottom line is that he did for Indians what Cesar Chavez did for Hispanics,” Bonnie Kalisher said. “He helped them out.”

The street in San Fernando was named for Kalisher on Sept. 15, 1874, at the request of H. C. Hubbard, a landowner in San Fernando, according to officials from the Los Angeles Department of Public Works.

“We put some of the road in the city of Los Angeles in 1925,” said Linda Arnold, a cartographer in the department’s bureau of engineering.

According to notes Arnold described as “sketchy,” Kalisher was a friend to Hubbard, whose brother-in-law, Benjamin Porter, owned large tracts of land in the Valley.

Because about a dozen residents protested the name change at a March council meeting, the City Council referred the issue to a committee to study other ways to honor Chavez.

The committee’s recommendation, which could include renaming a different street or one of the city’s parks after Chavez, is expected this month.