Anyone who’s spent time driving in north Redondo Beach has seen the streets named for early 20th century captains of industry, or, depending on your perspective, robber barons: Rockefeller Lane, Ripley Ave, Huntington Lane, etc.
It turns out one man was responsible for naming them in the early 1900s, in 1906 to be exact. His name was William Henry “Bill” Carlson, and he admired the men he named the streets after a great deal. Perhaps too much so at times, judging by some of his actions.
Carlson was born in Sweden on April 11, 1864. His family emigrated to America when he was a young boy, around 1870 or so. They settled in San Francisco, where he quickly learned to speak English. He eventually became a master of the slick, fast-talking sales pitch.
By 1885, he had moved to San Diego, then in the throes of a real estate boom. The city’s population had grown from 2,600 in the early 1880s to more than 40,000. Carlson wanted in on the money to be made from its rapid development, and he formed a real estate business partnership with fellow former San Franciscan Frank Higgins.
Their timing was good. The pair bought 600 acres of land and called their subdivision Ocean Beach. Business was brisk, especially after they promised to build railroad lines connecting it to the rest of the city. It was a promise they couldn’t keep; the lines wouldn’t be built until 1909.
The boom went bust, Higgins committed suicide in 1889 and the firm collapsed. Carlson decided to go to law school. After passing the bar, he ran for and won a seat in the California State Assembly. He then ran for and won election as mayor of the city in March 1893. Only 28 at the time, he remains the youngest mayor ever elected in San Diego.
While mayor, he again made big promises about developing the city’s railroad connections, most of which did not come to pass. He raised lots of money for a rail line to Arizona, for instance, but only 10 miles of it was ever built.
He lost his 1896 mayoral re-election bid. Having exhausted his political capital down south, Carlson moved to the Los Angeles area, which also had a wide open real estate market at the time. He managed the Pasadena Villa development in the city’s El Sereno area in 1902.
By 1906, he’d set up shop in Redondo Beach, and was selling lots in the Redondo Villa development. He began naming streets for the successful industrialists and financiers of the era in both Pasadena and Redondo.
He was particularly fond of railroad men. Hence, Collis Ave. and Huntington Lane, for railroad moguls Collis P. Huntington, and his nephew, Henry Huntington, Pullman Lane, Vanderbilt Lane, and others. He saw himself as a railroad man, too, but his ventures in that field were rarely fully realized.
Some of the Redondo Beach streets named for industrialists:
Armour Lane – Meatpacking baron Phillip Danforth Armour.
Carnegie Lane – Steel industry titan Andrew Carnegie.
Collis Ave. – Railroad mogul Collis P. Huntington, uncle of Henry Huntington.
Gould Ave. – Jason “Jay” Gould, railroad magnate and financier.
Harriman Lane – Financier and transportation investor E. Roland Harriman.
Havemeyer Lane – Henry Havemeyer of the sugar refining Havemeyer family.
Huntington Lane – Railroad mogul Henry Huntington, nephew of Collis Huntington.
Marshallfield Lane – Chicago department store magnate Marshall Field.
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Morgan Lane – J.P. Morgan, banker and financier.
Pullman Lane – George Pullman, railroad car innovator.
Ripley Ave. – Railroad baron E.P. Ripley.
Rindge Lane – Los Angeles area real estate investor Frederick Hastings Rindge.
Rockefeller Lane – John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil.
Spreckels Lane – Sugar magnate Claus Spreckels.
Van Horne Lane – Railroad man Cornelius Van Horne.
Vanderbilt Lane – Railroad/shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt.
There’s also Carlson Lane among the other big-name businessmen. It’s understandable why William wanted to see his name among the more prominent industrial leaders honored in the Redondo Villa development. He aspired to have some of the recognition, not to mention stacks of money, that the big players had garnered.
Unfortunately, he often chose shady ways of trying to reach their level.
In 1908, Carlson managed to infuriate South Bay/Harbor Area land baron George Peck by combining his land dealings with his own Consolidated Bank, which came under heavy scrutiny for its poor financial condition. Peck launched an investigation of the dealings of the barely solvent bank, but the fast-talking Carlson managed to wiggle out of trouble.
Carlson was less fortunate in 1917 when he was caught perpetrating a fraudulent land scheme that used the mails to sell the same desert land parcels to more than one buyer at a time. He served two years of his four-year sentence for mail fraud in the case.
He seems to have become more subdued in his later years. He and his wife of 50 years, Carmen Luisa Ferrer, settled in South Pasadena for the rest of their days. Carlson died at home there at 73 on July 7, 1937. Carmen died 10 days later.
Sources:
Find A Grave website.
L.A. Street Names website.
Los Angeles Herald archives.
Wikipedia.
