A Place for Stars, if Not Holly Trees

Kansas transplants Horace Henderson Wilcox and his wife, Daeida, filed a tract map for a 120-acre God-fearing community that they named Hollywood. Horace even imported two holly trees to justify the name, but they didn’t survive. The couple offered free lots to any church community. Gambling halls, billiard dens and saloons were prohibited when Hollywood incorporated in 1903 with about 700 residents. The city of small wooden bungalows, open fields and citrus groves was incorporated into Los Angeles in 1910 to share in its water supply. By then, Hollywood’s population had swelled to about 4,000.