2008 Woodie Awards
Hollywood 101: A historical journey
Dino Mujakovic
Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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The context of my column is usually the good, bad and downright ugly of Hollywood. However, when we speak of "Hollywood," we speak of the community and their members pushing out more movies than China before the one child rule. Yet, we know so little about Hollywood and how it all came together. After all, we do find ourselves in the Oscars time.
My goal right now is to ignore today's modern state of Hollywood but rather take you back to how it all started. Welcome to Hollywood 101: A historical journey.
Spanish explorers took over the area today known as Hollywood previously occupied by Native Americans. The natives were living in the Santa Monica Mountains but were soon moved to missions.
We find ourselves in the year 1853, where one adobe hut stood on what we call today Hollywood, and in 1870 the area flourished with thriving crops, making it an agricultural community. Soon a community was formed with the name Cahuenga. What we see today as movie history being made used to be a simple crop area.
It is uncertain where the name "Hollywood" came from, but there are popular estimates. One of those estimates traces back to the ample stands of native Toyon, a shrub which surrounded the Cahuenga area, also called "California Holly."
There are different accounts on who the first person was to name the area. One account says it came from H. J. Whitley, the Father of Hollywood, as he and his wife came up with it during their honeymoon.
Another account is that Mrs. Wilcox, married to Harvey Henderson Wilcox, who bought 160 acres of land in the countryside to the west of Los Angeles in 1886, coined the name while on a train where she met a wealth lady from a country, named after Dutch immigrants, called Hollywood.
Either way, the name "Hollywood" is probably known by everybody today.
By 1900, Cahuenga had a population of 500 including a newspaper, post office, two markets and a hotel. It lay seven miles west of Los Angeles.
My goal right now is to ignore today's modern state of Hollywood but rather take you back to how it all started. Welcome to Hollywood 101: A historical journey.
Spanish explorers took over the area today known as Hollywood previously occupied by Native Americans. The natives were living in the Santa Monica Mountains but were soon moved to missions.
We find ourselves in the year 1853, where one adobe hut stood on what we call today Hollywood, and in 1870 the area flourished with thriving crops, making it an agricultural community. Soon a community was formed with the name Cahuenga. What we see today as movie history being made used to be a simple crop area.
It is uncertain where the name "Hollywood" came from, but there are popular estimates. One of those estimates traces back to the ample stands of native Toyon, a shrub which surrounded the Cahuenga area, also called "California Holly."
There are different accounts on who the first person was to name the area. One account says it came from H. J. Whitley, the Father of Hollywood, as he and his wife came up with it during their honeymoon.
Another account is that Mrs. Wilcox, married to Harvey Henderson Wilcox, who bought 160 acres of land in the countryside to the west of Los Angeles in 1886, coined the name while on a train where she met a wealth lady from a country, named after Dutch immigrants, called Hollywood.
Either way, the name "Hollywood" is probably known by everybody today.
By 1900, Cahuenga had a population of 500 including a newspaper, post office, two markets and a hotel. It lay seven miles west of Los Angeles.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Thomas
posted 4/20/07 @ 10:13 PM CST
The true story of who is the creator of the name, founder and developer of Hollywood is Hobart Johnstone Whitley. An area of Hollywood and a street were named after HJ Whitley. (Continued…)
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