Much of what we think of as remnants of California history are just a re-creation. Think of Disney's California Adventure or Knott's Berry Farm. San Lorenzo Street in Santa Monica Canyon gets its name from a local historian's attempt to recreate California's Rancho days.

Rancho La Boca de Santa Monica was a day's ride from the nearest Catholic cemetery, so when the Marquez family died, they were buried on the property. Nearly a hundred years later, in 1926, the land was sold to build homes. But Dorothy Lummis, the daughter of the developer, convinced her father to preserve the remains of the adobe and the graveyard. She commissioned an architect to build an adobe wall around it, one with a niche. Artist J. Michael Walker says that's where Dorothy put the statue of a saint, in the style of the Spanish era.

"As it happens, the saint she chose is St. Lawrence. Nobody really knows why that is, there's no record of why she chose San Lorenzo, but that's the reason the street out front has his name as well."

The 4th century Saint Lawrence met a rather grisly end: he was grilled to death. Peasants called the Perseid meteor shower "the tears of St. Lawrence."

(Airdate: 3/29/2008)