Henricus Wallace Westlake

Henricus Wallace Westlake (June 1858 – 12 May 1905) was a Canadian physician who moved to Los Angeles, California, around 1888, settled in the rolling hills west of the city and gave his name to both a municipal park and a neighborhood in the city.^[1][2]

Westlake was born in either Canada^[3] or England in June 1858.^[4] He was a graduate of the medical department of McGill University in Montreal and also earned diplomas in Edinburgh and Vienna. He moved to Los Angeles in 1888, where he pioneered in building a large home on Burlington Avenue in the empty, rolling hills west of the city. He developed a large medical practice and was also president of the California-Corsica Citron Company and the Westlake-Rommel Oil Company, besides owning mining interests in Arizona.^[2] He was also the inventor of at least one medical device.^[5]

He was known as a generous philanthropist who gave large sums to charities.^[2] He donated to the city an "unsightly gully" which in the winter filled with storm water and became stagnant, and the land was later developed into Westlake Park,^[1] now known as MacArthur Park.

In 1885^[2] or 1889^[1] he married Fannie Farquhar of Canada, who was his only survivor when he died on May 12, 1905.

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