Historic Hollywood

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Above: The E. C. Hurd residence on
the northwest corner of Prospect
(Hollywood Boulevard) and Wilcox
avenues. The Hurd house was one of
many elegant Victorian-Style
residences that once fronted Prospect
Avenue at the turn of the century.
Below: Once located at the northwest
corner of Hollywood Boulevard and
Highland Avenue, the Hollywood
Hotel became the second landmark in
Hollywood when it was built in 1903
(the first being artist Paul
DeLongpre’s house). Over the years
the hotel hosted the motion picture
industry and was the center of life in
early Hollywood. By the coming of
WWII the hotel had seen better times,
and by 1956 the site was cleared for
the construction of a bank and office
building. The Hollywood Hotel Florist
still survives today three blocks from
its original location as Hollywood
Famous Florist.
school to handle the growing population at
the time. Arriving in 1902, one of Hollywood’s
most important developers, Charles Edward
Toberman, came to Hollywood to live and was
responsible for over 53 subdivisions of the area
as well as forming 30 companies and
organizations and developing 29 commercial
buildings, including the Chinese Theater, over a
70-year period. With the connection to the
movie industry that was to come to Hollywood,
Toberman helped in his own way to make the
film industry welcome and was involved with
studio construction in Hollywood proper over
the years.
In 1907 the first movie production company
arrived in Los Angeles from Chicago. The
Selig Film Manufacturing Company made
scenes from the first dramatic film shot in
California entitled, The Count of Monte Cristo.
After a successful shoot, the company
established the first permanently built studio in
Los Angeles in 1908, which started a boom in
motion picture production to follow in the
coming years.
It wasn’t until 1910, though, that the film
industry noticed Hollywood with the coming of
film director D. W. Griffith who used the
Hollywood area as a backdrop for his film, In
Old California. Scenes of Hollywood taken from
the hills showed audiences around the world
that this was a place to visit and helped
accelerate the tourist trade in the area.
8 ✦ HISTORIC HOLLYWOOD