As you'd expect, there's a Montrose Avenue in Montrose. The name didn't come from the two men who developed the Crescenta Valley land. Filmmaker John Newcombe says their names were Walton and Holmes.

"I think only Walton ever came up here because Holmes was so allergic to poison oak that the first time he visited, his eyes shut or something, and so he fled and never came back. Only developed Montrose on paper."

Walton and Holmes didn't have a name for their city, so they sponsored a contest. The winner was a homesick lieutenant governor who named it after his hometown in Pennsylvania.

Newcombe, whose documentary is called "Rancho La Canada: Then and Now," says there is a rose in Montrose, though you can only see it from the air. The developers laid out the streets in circles to resemble the famous flower.

(Airdate: 4/19/2009)