The story behind Kenneth Village, the cluster of shops on Kenneth Road between Sonora and Grandview avenues in northwest Glendale, goes back to a time before those streets even existed.
It was a time when it was open country, west of the little village of Casa Verdugo, and totally separate from another settlement to the southeast called Glendale.
Vineyards, citrus orchards and commercial gardens covered most of the land. The most dominant man-made feature was a small cemetery, called Grand View, which opened in the mid-1880s, and it was one of the few such places around. (Forest Lawn didn't open until 1906.)
There were a few houses. Walter Dow built one in 1896 near Central Avenue. The house and barn were on a slight knoll, surrounded by 11 acres of orange and avocado groves. The front porch faced south, overlooking the yet-unincorporated town of Glendale, and the back door opened onto a dusty lane then called Baugh Road.