Echo Park is a hilly neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, northwest of Downtown Los Angeles and southeast of Hollywood.
At the end of the 19th century, when the hills were still covered with native vegetation, a horse-drawn streetcar line served the dirt road that is now Echo Park Avenue. The community of Echo Park was founded by Thomas Kelly, a carriage maker turned real estate developer. In the late 1880s Kelly teamed up with a group of local investors, selling off pieces of what they called "the Montana Tract." Legend says that the lake got its name after workers building the reservoir remarked that their voices echoed off the canyon walls.
Echo Park was named Edendale before the construction of the park itself. The original name survives through the U.S. Post Office Edendale branch and the Edendale branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.