Henry Gaylord Wilshire

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Gaylord Wilshire, from his book Socialism Inevitable

Henry Gaylord Wilshire (June 7 1861 - September 7, 1927) was a land developer, publisher and outspoken socialist who gave Wilshire Boulevard its name.

Born 1861 in Cincinnati Ohio, Wilshire came to Los Angeles in 1884. In 1895 he began developing 35 acres stretching westward from Westlake Park for an elite residential subdivision. He donated a strip of land to the city of Los Angeles for a boulevard through what was then a barley field, on the conditions that it would be named for him and that railroad lines and commercial or industrial trucking would be banned.

In 1900, Wilshire was arrested for speaking in a public park in Los Angeles. A judge dismissed the charges, but the incident caused Wilshire to leave Los Angeles for New York. ^[1]

Wilshire stood as the Nationalist Party congressional candidate for the 6th California district in 1890, for the British Parliament in 1894, for the 6th district again in 1900, for the Canadian Parliament in 1902, and for Congress from New York in 1904.

He eventually returned to Los Angeles and made much of his connection with the now famous Boulevard that bore his name, although he had no involvement with its gradual expansion in the years while he was absent from the region. He made and lost several fortunes during his lifetime and died destitute.