Origins: The Street Names of Sherman Oaks

If, like many of us, you daily drive these streets of Sherman Oaks occasionally pondering the odd diversity of street names, the mixture of languages encompassing English, Spanish, Native American and beyond, and wonder just where they all came from, Patch shares your curiosity. And we've done some digging.

What follows are origins of many of the names of the main streets and boulevards of this town. However, as there are several notable absences, we welcome you, our historically-minded Patch readers and longtime residents of Sherman Oaks, to let us know what we missed.

Sherman Oaks was named for General Moses Hazeltine Sherman, who owned all the land now named in his honor. Born in Vermont in 1853, he had a big house at the intersection of Ventura Blvd. and Sepulveda Blvd. in Sherman Oaks, but preferred living downtown at the Westminster Hotel.

A wealthy land-developer, he built the Phoenix Street Railway in Phoenix, Arizona before coming even farther west to Los Angeles, where he bought large parcels of land and built streetcar lines in both the L.A. basin and the valley in 1910. He built a little town just west of Hollywood, at the junction of his streetcar lines, and called it Sherman. It’s now known as West Hollywood.

But the city named for him in the Valley retains his name: Sherman Oaks.

Patch will bring you more on the history of General Sherman, whose vision of a grand streetcar highway was known as Sherman Way, in future editions.

What follows are some of the origins of street names in Sherman Oaks that Patch could discover. If you know of any others, please let us know.

Ventura Boulevard: The name Ventura is derived from Saint Bonaventure, for whom Father Junipero Serra named the Mission San Buenaventura, in what is now the city of Ventura.

The 101 Freeway, constructed in 1959 along a route over the Conejo Grade, linked the city of Ventura with Los Angeles and was named the Ventura Freeway.

Ventura Boulevard preceded the freeway, flowing all the way from the Cahuenga Pass west throuh the valley. It's the oldest continuously traveled route in the Valley. It was laid out to follow part of the Spanish El Camino Real, and was known first as Camino de las Virgenes, and then Ventura Road before becoming the famous thoroughfare we all know as Ventura Boulevard.

Chandler Boulevard: Named for General Sherman's fellow land developer and  Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler.

Sepulveda Boulevard: Once known as Saugus Avenue, it is named for the Sepulveda family of early Los Angeles.

Van Nuys Boulevard: Named in honor of Isaac Newton Van Nuys (November 20, 1836 – February 12, 1912), a land developer, banker, and agricultural entrepreneur.

Mulholland Drive: Named for the legendary engineer William Mulholland, who designed the vast Los Angeles Aqueduct, as well as the Mulholland Dam and Lake Hollywood above Hollywood. This winding ridgeline road in the Santa Monica Mountains was originally a dirt road and first called Mulholland Highway before being renamed Mulholland Drive in 1939. Portions of the original road remain unpaved to this day.

Coldwater Canyon Avenue: Named after Coldwater Canyon, the stretch of it in the Valley was Diaz Avenue until 1937.

Fulton Avenue: Named for Walter M. Fulton, a local resident in 1917.

Matilija Avenue: Named for a Chumash Indian rancheria in Ventura County, and is Chumash for poppy.

Moorpark Street: Moorparks are an English variety of apricot, a popular crop in early North Hollywood. Name changed from Second Street in 1917. The 'Moorpark' variety itself was named after the Moor Park estate in England where this apricot was first cultivated in the 1600s.

Woodman Avenue: Named for the Woodman Ranch in 1917, after being called Castro Avenue. At the same time, the Mayor of Los Angeles was Frederick Thomas Woodman, who served from 1916 to 1919, leading many to conclude ever since the avenue was named in his honor. It wasn't.

Oxnard Street: For Henry T. Oxnard, who established a beet sugar refinery in 1897 in Oxnard. It was believed for several years that the San Fernando Valley could become the beet capital of the nation.

Hazeltine Street: Hazeltine is both the middle name of General Moses Hazeltine Sherman, and the name of his daughter. Most sources agree the street was named by the General in honor of his daughter. His first and middle names, according to one unreliable source, came from a man his aunt married named Moses Hazeltine.