In 1853, only one adobe shack stood in the area that is now Hollywood. By the 1870's the area had become a thriving rural community growing a variety of crops of native and exotic origin.
Hollywood got its current name in 1886 from the Whitley family. It was around this time that Oklahoma immigrant Harvey J. Whitley began working as a real estate agent here. Around 1900 the municipality had a post office, a newspaper, a hotel, two markets and 500 inhabitants. On November 14, 1903, Hollywood was recognized as a separate municipality following the affirmative vote of its constituents.
Just seven years later, in 1910, the people of Hollywood voted in favor of incorporation into Los Angeles. The main reason for this was the access to the water supply of the neighboring city. The Los Angeles Aqueduct had been under construction on behalf of the Los Angeles Water Authority since 1908. It was intended to transport large quantities of inexpensive drinking water from the Owens Valley to dry southern California. With the help of this water, the city of Los Angeles was able to incorporate a large number of neighboring communities. Other communities with their own water supply such. B. Burbank remain independent today for the same reason.
That same year, 1910, New York film director D. W. Griffith and his troupe of actors visited Hollywood to shoot the first Hollywood-produced film, In Old California. The film premiered on March 10, 1910. Griffith and his staff stayed for several months and completed a series of films before returning to New York. The real rise of Hollywood began the following year when David Horsley's Nestor Company opened its first film studio here. In the same year, 15 other companies, known as independents, relocated from New York, the center of the film industry at the time, to Hollywood. By 1915, the majority of all American films were being produced in the Los Angeles area.
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