It's not all that unusual to find real estate success stories memorialized in local street names. But a real estate failure also left his legacy on an Orange County street.

Phil Brigandi says there are two Culvers in Orange County. "Everyone knows the one in Irvine, I imagine. But there's also a Culver Avenue in Orange." Brigandi wrote "Orange County Places Names A-Z." He says the other Culver might have a lot in common with some folks today. He lost his shirt in a real estate bust long ago.

"Charles Culver was one of the early real estate developers in Orange, quite a 'boomer' as we would say back in the 1880s. Built one of the big hotels during the big real estate boom when the railroad got here in the 1880s, and so of course, suffered the most when the boom went bust a couple of years later, and ended up skipping town for Mexico and was never seen again."

Culver was long gone, but his name stayed behind on street signs in Orange.

(Airdate: 8/30/2008)