There's a street near the 210 Freeway in the San Gabriel Valley called Foothill Boulevard. Filmmaker John Newcombe says it used to be called something else.

"Foothill in La Canada and La Crescenta was originally called Michigan."

Newcombe's documentary is called "Rancho La Canada: Then and Now." He says Dr. Jacob Lanterman, a dentist, and Civil War veteran Adolphus Williams came out west from Lansing, Michigan. They bought 5,800 acres of the old Rancho for $10,000 and hoped to make a fortune by selling off lots. Newcombe says they honored their home state with a street.

"It was renamed Foothill in 1936 when the state took over the road and they wanted to align it with all of that major road that goes through all of the foothills."

Michigan Street was gone – years after the friendship between Lanterman and Williams vanished.

(Airdate: 3/28/2009)