How did Hollywood get it's name?

Question

Some times I get these wierd burning questions going through my head - usually after a stressful day - and nothing will let me off the hook until it is answered.

Answer 1

Look at this site. It's a pretty interesting story

Answer 2

A more important question that why did Hollywood get its name was why did it keep its name. A small ranch was renamed Hollywood merely because the owners liked the name. However only one attempt to make a film near this area, the locals didn't like the look of film crews, who must have looked very different from today. For some reason however films made in California were said to be made in Hollywood, and the name stuck.

Answer 3

This is from wikipedia site:

.... 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. But this and accounts of the name coming from imported English holly then growing in the area are incorrect. There is some disagreement as to who was the first to name the place Hollywood. One correct account says that the name in fact was coined by H.J. Whitley[1], the Father of Hollywood. He and his wife Gigi came up with the name in 1886 while on their honeymoon. Over the years Whitley had established more than 140 towns. (from Margaret Virginia Whitley's memoir)[2] Another account is that Mrs. Wilcox -- while on a train she became acquainted with a wealthy lady who often spoke of her country home named after a settlement of Dutch immigrants from Zwolle called "Hollywood", and when she returned to Los Angles she so named her country place.

Answer 4

It was going to be a housing project, but the financial backers either went broke or backed out. The development was to be called Hollywoodland. The development never happened, but the sign stayed until some actress committed suicide off of the "D" at the end of the sign. The "land" was removed from the sign, but the sign stayed. Now they wouldn't dare get rid of it. I lived off of Sunset Blvd for a while, you'd be amazed at the number of times I would just stop and look at that stupid sign, and I'm not the only one.

Answer 5

I have the same problem, but it's buring gas.

I'm going to say, they read that sign on the Hill. Nobody knows how that white "Hollywood" sign got on the hill. It was there when the first settlers come to the area in the 1700's. It's sort of like America's stonehenge.

Answer 6

The American president at the time decided that he needed to have somewhere famous to make movies so the brain dead people of society could watch them and think that it is all make believe when the president just wanted a way to screen conspiracies to see what the general reaction would be like.
This way he and future government would be able to time when to introduce reality to the public.

Answer 7

in 1853, one adobe hut stood on the site that became Hollywood. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished in the area with thriving crops. In the 1880s, Harvey Henderson Wilcox of Kansas, who made a fortune in real estate even though he had lost the use of his legs due to typhoid fever, and his wife, Daeida, moved to Los Angeles from Topeka. In 1886, Wilcox bought 160 acres (0.6 km²) of land in the countryside to the west of the city at the foothills and the Cahuenga Pass.
Glen-Holly Hotel, first hotel in Hollywood, at the corner of what is now Yucca St. and Ivar Ave.; 1890.
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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. But this and accounts of the name coming from imported English holly then growing in the area are incorrect. There is some disagreement as to who was the first to name the place Hollywood. One correct account says that the name in fact was coined by H.J. Whitley[1], the Father of Hollywood. He and his wife Gigi came up with the name in 1886 while on their honeymoon. Over the years Whitley had established more than 140 towns. (from Margaret Virginia Whitley's memoir)[2] Another account is that Mrs. Wilcox -- while on a train she became acquainted with a wealthy lady who often spoke of her country home named after a settlement of Dutch immigrants from Zwolle called "Hollywood", and when she returned to Los Angles she so named her country place.

By 1900, the community called Cahuenga 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.
Hollywood Hotel, 1905


The first section of the famous Hollywood Hotel, the first major hotel in Hollywood, was opened in 1902 by H.J. Whitley, eager to sell residential lots among the lemon ranches then lining the foothills. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue. Still a dusty, unpaved road, it was regularly graded and graveled.
The intersection of Hollywood and Highland, 1907

The intersection of Hollywood and Highland, 1907

Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. Among the town ordinances was one prohibiting the sale of liquor except by pharmacists and one outlawing the driving of cattle through the streets in herds of more than two hundred. In 1904, a new trolley car track running from Los Angeles to Hollywood up Prospect 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, the townsmen voted for Hollywood to be annexed into the City of Los Angeles, as the water system of the growing city had opened the Los Angeles 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.

With annexation, the name of Prospect Avenue was changed to Hollywood Boulevard and all the street numbers in the new district changed. For example, 100 Prospect Avenue, at Vermont Avenue, became 6400 Hollywood Boulevard; and 100 Cahuenga Boulevard, at Hollywood Boulevard, changed to 1700 Cahuenga Boulevard.
hope this satisfies your"burning" question







season's greetings

Answer 8

They used to think stars were Holy, and cause it was a huge forest, they called it Holy-Wood. Thus Hollywood!

Answer 9

It started as housing development called "Hollywoodland"
It never really got going, but the name and sign (most of it) stuck

Answer 10

Possibly from a forest of holly trees that grew there!