It was developed as a simple one-block long lane by Jonathan Temple, a mid-19th Century Los Angeles cattle rancher and merchant.

The south side of this intersection where the three streets met was called Temple Block, an important retail building in early Los Angeles.

From the late 1860s, development pushed westward from what was then the central business district, and West Temple Street became a fashionable residential thoroughfare, and remained so into the 1880s.

The city's High School opened in 1871 at Temple's south edge atop Poundcake Hill, since flattened.

Until the 1920s, Temple Street, as the city continued to grow west towards the ocean, was extended all the way to Beverly Hills.