LOCATION

Hollywood, coming from imported English holly then growing in the area are incorrect. The name in fact was coined by Hobart Johnstone Whitley, the Father of Hollywood. He and his wife Gigi came up with the name in 1886 while on their honeymoon. They were standing on the hill overlooking the valley which is now Whitley Heights.

It is part of the California Historic Preservation Overlay Zone. With a hand shake a deal was secured to purchase 500 acres from Mr. Hurd whom they shared the name of their new town. Over the years Whitley had established more than 140 towns. (from Margaret Virginia Whitley's memoir) A locally popular etymology is that the name Hollywood traces to the ample stands of native Toyon, or "California Holly," that cover the hillsides with clusters of bright red berries each winter.

arvey Wilcox drew up a grid map for a town, which he filed with the county recorder's office on February 1, 1887, the first official appearance of the name Hollywood. With his wife as a constant advisor, he carved out Prospect Avenue (later Hollywood Boulevard) for the main street. Whitley lined it and the other wide dirt avenues with pepper trees, and paved them..

Whitley then had the name changed to Hollywood Boulevard. By 1900, Hollywood also had a post office, a newspaper, a hotel and two markets, along with a population of 500 people. Los Angeles, with a population of 100,000 people at the time, lay seven miles (11 km) east through the citrus groves..

A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from Los Angeles, but service was infrequent and the trip took two hours. The old citrus fruit packing house would be converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood.

Avenue was opened. The system was called "the Hollywood boulevard." It cut travel time to and from Los Angeles drastically. By 1910, because of an ongoing struggle to secure an adequate water supply

Aqueduct and was piping water down from the Owens River in the Owens Valley. Another reason for the vote was that Hollywood could have access to drainage through Los Angeles' sewer system.


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