#wilshire-boulevard

#wilshire-boulevard

In 1895, an eccentric businessman named Henry Gaylord Wilshire began developing a luxury residential community on what was then the western edge of Los Angeles. In a gesture of civic pride, or perhaps shrewd self-promotion, he cut a strip of land running four blocks down the middle of the subdivision and donated it to the city for a grand boulevard. But his gift had two conditions. The first was that the road be named for him. The second was that rail lines be banned from the thoroughfare.