After the Civil War, land speculators and the richest class of Americans at the time,

railroad tycoons started buying up land in southern California, specifically in a place

that would eventually be called the LA Basin. Indigenous peoples had lived there for almost 10,000

years, but that changed after the Empire of Spain conquered Central and South America. In 1781,

44 people from Spain's province of Mexico journeyed through the desert to establish a village on

the spot that would be the city of Los Angeles. About 70 years later, after a war, the Mexican state of

Alta, California became part of the growing nation of the United States of America. The state's

name was shortened to California, and at about the same time, gold was discovered in the northern

part of the state. Americans and gold seekers from around the world flooded into northern California.

Meanwhile, the southern part remained relatively quiet. There was no shiny gold in southern California,

and the insatiable desire for black gold, also known as oil, was about 50 years away.

In southern California, the hot commodity was land. The weather was perfect, the scenery was stunning,

and in some areas the land was rich for farming. That helped fuel migration in the 1860s and 70s.

In 1880, the census listed the population of Los Angeles at 33,000 people. A couple of years later,

a man named Harvey Wilcox bought 500 acres of land north-west of the city center. He wanted

to turn it into a new subdivision, but it was a man called a Hobart John Stone Whitley,

who actually completed the transformation. Mercifully, Hobart was known as H.J. Whitley,

so that podcasters 140 years in the future wouldn't have to continuously say Hobart John Stone.

Whitley completed the community that was eventually named Hollywood. And if you're familiar with

the city, you're probably familiar with Wilcox Avenue and Whitley Avenue, in the city that is now

West Hollywood. There are two blocks from each other, though few people know how they got their names.

Now you do. There are almost endless legends about the origin of the name Hollywood,

...