Hollywood Origin Story – ‘No Dogs or Actors Allowed’

Long before studios started popping up all over Los Angeles and Hollywood, the landscape includes rolling fields and orchards. It’s a place that would be unrecognizable today and I’m sure it was a beautiful sight to behold.

Hollywood was officially founded in 1853 and comprised just a single adobe cabin on land outside of Los Angeles, California. In the 1870s, growing crops was a large and successful business and it was a thriving agricultural community.

According to Hollywood History, Hollywood got its name from Daeida, the wife of real estate mogul, Harvey Henderson Wilcox, who moved to Los Angeles from Topeka, Kansas in the 1880s. You bought 160 acres of land west of Los Angeles. On a train ride east, Daeida met a woman “who described her country home in Ohio, which was named for the Dutch settlement of Hollywood. Liking her name, Daeida christened their ranch ‘Hollywood’ upon her return.

The first street in Hollywood was called Prospect Avenue, but this was later changed to Hollywood Boulevard, where city lots were carved out around dirt boulevards and pepper trees. In the early 1900s, it had a population of 500, a post office, a newspaper, a couple of markets, and the Hollywood Hotel was built.

It was around this time that movie studios began populating the area. The reason filmmakers started making their way into Hollywood was to move away from Thomas Edison and his Motion Picture Patents Company in New Jersey. You see, Edison imposed strict rules on his film technology and independent filmmakers were constantly sued by Edison to stop their productions for breaking his rules. They wanted to escape his iron fist. The area also had great weather conditions for filming and lots of beautiful scenery.

As more and more people traveled to Hollywood for new beginnings and to make their dreams come true, the locals who had settled on the land much earlier, were not happy with the new growing community and avoided them, even including signs outside shops and other establishment that says “No dogs or actors allowed”. There was a lot of anger directed towards the recognizable stars of the industry.

Hollywood: Legend And Reality explained, “Why Hollywood? The pioneers were drawn to Southern California by the promise of cheap labor, spectacular locations, and a favorable climate…. The pioneers were a tough breed, indifferent to physical hardships, rattlesnakes, and gun-toting rivals.

He goes on to explain, “From 1908 onwards, crude studios and outdoor sets were built over an area of ​​300 square miles. Hollywood, then a bucolic settlement of 5,000 people, became the prime target. It was conveniently close to the hills and downtown Los Angeles, but its early settlers—serious Midwesterners who had banned saloons and theaters—were hostile. He recalled pioneer director Allan Dwan: ‘We were below them. If we walked down the street without cameras, they would hide their girls under the beds, close the doors and windows and walk away.’ ‘No Dogs, No Actors,’ read a sign at the Hollywood Hotel.

Regardless of the local hatred, people kept showing up and Hollywood became the place to be if you wanted to get into the movie business. Some of those early silent era actors included Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Clara Bow, John Barrymore, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, Lon Chaney, Sr., Harold Lloyd, and others.