Gardens, glens, people inspired names of cities

Early cityhood names often stem from pride -- in a famous novelist, an entrepreneur’s thatched roof “punch” stand or even God.

Los Angeles County has 88 cities, each with its own story. Here’s how some of them got their names, along with the year they incorporated:

Gardena (1930)

Local legend has it that Spencer R. Thorpe, credited with starting the first settlement near 161st and Figueroa streets in the late 1880s, named the town because he thought it was a beautiful garden spot. Three communities -- Gardena, Strawberry Park and Moneta -- joined to create what began as an agricultural town.

Glendale (1906)

This foothill town was originally known as Verdugo, named for Spanish soldier Jose Maria Verdugo, who began farming on the 36,403-acre Rancho San Rafael in 1784. An 1881 county map identified this area as Riverdale, but the post office refused to recognize the name because there was already a Riverdale in Fresno County. The community took the name Mason for a short period, until the village of citrus orchardists officially became Glendale at a town meeting in 1884. Its name is a bit redundant: “Glen” and “dale” both mean valley.

Glendora (1911)

The name was coined in 1887 by Chicago manufacturer and town founder George Dexter Whitcomb, who combined two words: glen (to connote the adjacent terrain) and his wife’s nickname, Dora, short for Leadora.

Hawaiian Gardens (1964)

Credit for naming this community belongs to an enterprising but unknown businessman who turned a Prohibition-era thatched-roof fruit stand near Carson Street and Norwalk Boulevard into a thriving refreshment stand. Legend has it that the proprietor had a talent for moonshine, and farmers would trot over from their lima bean fields and dairy barns for spiked punch. Travelers on the horse trail often said the shack resembled a Hawaiian garden. The name stuck.

Hawthorne (1922)

This city received its name around 1906 after Laurine Harding Woolwine, daughter of Benjamin Harding, one of the town’s founders, suggested that the community of barley fields be named for her favorite novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne. She shared the author’s birthday.

Hermosa Beach (1907)

The name stems from the Spanish word for beautiful, which the Hermosa Beach Land & Water Co. used in 1901 to advertise the property. When the community incorporated six years later by the slimmest of margins -- 24 aye, 23 nay -- the only beach bunnies on the Hermosa sand were rabbits that lived under the pier. In an appeal to snootier settlers, Hermosa Beach used to call itself “The Aristocrat of the California Beaches.”

Hidden Hills (1961)

The 2,000-resident gated equestrian community near Calabasas and the Los Angeles-Ventura County line was named by A.E. Hanson because the hills shield the area from nearby roads. Hanson -- landscape architect for such stars as Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks -- was known for his vision, drive and appreciation of simplicity.

Huntington Park (1906)

Developers E.V. Baker and A.L. Burbank named the community in 1903 as an enticement for Henry E. Huntington to build his Pacific Electric Railway through their 100-acre development, which had been called La Park. However, the post office considered it La Park until the city incorporated.

Industry (1957)

Once undeveloped agricultural land in the La Puente Valley, it became a community devoted solely to commerce after World War II, evoking images of smokestacks and tireless assembly lines, of great machines clanking around the clock.

Inglewood (1908)

This community was once part of two land grants: the Ranchos Aguaje de la Centinela and Sausal Redondo. After several changes in ownership, the 25,000-acre ranch was purchased by Canadian immigrant Daniel Freeman, who was in search of a warm climate for his wife, ill with tuberculosis.

In 1887, Freeman and a group of investors organized the Centinela-Inglewood Land Company and laid out the town of Inglewood, so named by a stockholder’s relative who supposedly hailed from Inglewood, Canada.

Irwindale (1957)

Instead of getting its name from the area’s rock, gravel and sand deposits that the construction industry has been digging up for more than a century, it’s named for the man who in 1899 owned the area’s first gasoline-powered water pump. Irwin’s first name is unknown; even the city’s website doesn’t include it. His daughter, Dale, provided the second part of the name.

La Canada Flintridge (1976)

The first part of the dual name, La Canada, means valley, glen or dell in Spanish. La Canada was part of a 6,000-acre Mexican land grant. The second part was named by one-time U.S. Sen. Frank Putnam Flint, who called his subdivision Flintridge.

When the two distinct communities opted to become one city, a clerk erroneously put a hyphen between their names. Nearly a decade later, in 1985, residents deleted the punctuation with an ordinance because they believed it connoted separation between the parts of the community.

La Habra Heights (1978)

The area was part of the La Canada del Habra land grant in 1839. Habra means gorge or pass, referring to the passage through the Puente Hills. “Heights” was added to distinguish the community behind the hills from La Habra in Orange County.

Lakewood (1954)

Philanthropist Ben Weingart and partners purchased 3,500 acres of the old Rancho Los Cerritos in 1949, eventually supplying thousands of families with low-cost housing in a “dream city” that had been planned since the 1930s.

Many think the name comes from Bouton Lake -- located on the golf course of the Lakewood Country Club -- which was formed in 1895 when oil drillers accidentally opened an artesian well. However, because many early residents of the area were from the East Coast, others believe the community was named after Lakewood, N.J.

La Mirada (1960)

Andrew McNally, founder of Rand McNally Publishing Co., first gazed over his 2,378 acres of Southern California in the 1890s. His new holdings included the panorama of verdant hills that were reflected in the nearby lake, creating an enchanting vista -- hence, La Mirada, or “the view.”

He also planted thousands of olive trees on his Windemere Ranch. Another story is that the greenery of the orchard looked like a mirage against the brown countryside.

Subdivided in 1953, the community incorporated as Mirada Hills seven years later. But within months voters changed the name back to La Mirada.

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cecilia.rasmussen@latimes.com

Sources: “1000 California Place Names” by Erwin G. Gudde; “The Dictionary of California Land Names” by Phil Townsend Hanna; “Los Angeles A to Z” by Leonard Pitt and Dale Pitt; chambers of commerce and city websites; L.A. Times archives.