|
Search By:
|
|
1/2/1887 - Hollywood is Christened
In 1883 Harvey Wilcox, a wealthy rancher – who, together with fellow prohibitionists, had succeeded in outlawing alcohol from his native Topeka, Kansas – and his wife, Daeida, arrived in California looking for a new home. While out on a carriage ride one Sunday afternoon, they discovered a stretch of land near Cahuenga Pass filled with apricot and fig trees, and decided this would be the ideal spot for their new home.
Wilcox quickly purchased 170 acres of land, initially planning to develop them as the site of a Protestant Christian temperance community. The following year, while travelling east by train on holiday, Daeida fell into conversation with a woman who told her that she had named her summer home in Ohio “Hollywood”. Daeida was so taken by the name that on her return home she gave the same name to their new development, and it first appeared officially on a detailed subdivision map submitted to the County Recorder by Wilcox on 1st February 1887.
Hollywood had been christened, and its proud parents had high hopes that it would become a community of simple, temperate, god-fearing folk.
Like many parents, they were to be disappointed… [ADD]
Further Reading:
© 2009-2010 moviemoviesite.com