El Granada is a coastal village of about 5,500 people, named for the city of Granada in Spain. The post office mistakenly recorded the name as El Granada in 1909.
Its unusual concentric-circular street layout was designed by Daniel Burnham, the planner who oversaw the design of the 1893 Chicago world’s fair and designed New York’s Flatiron Building. The Ocean Shore Railroad commissioned the plan to make a seaside resort for people who would ride the railroad from San Francisco.
Financial trouble and the arrival of the automobile made the railroad give up the idea, and El Granada became a residential community instead.
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