It all started in a small village in the early 1900's that developed into the most influential and wealthiest place in America. Hollywood. It was here that competition between studios and the need to make a profit submerged. Starting out as small film companies in the 1900's, Hollywood over the years became a place and time of competition, publicity, and movie stars.
The name Hollywood predated the arrival of movies. A woman named Deida Wilcox, for the ranch she and her husband owned in the Cahuenga Valley, adopted it. On a trip back east, Mrs. Wilcox spoke to a woman from Chicago who owned a country estate called Hollywood. She was so intrigued with the name that she and her husband named their own land after it. A few years later, Mr. Wilcox subdivided his land, and the small community that grew from this subdivision kept the Hollywood name. In 1919, a town joined it to Los Angeles, which undertook to supply water and a sewage system.
From 1908 and on, film companies began to cluster around Hollywood, and the Nestor Film Company was the only company to actually settle at a location in Hollywood. However, the name was soon connected with movie-making and other companies wanted to be a part of it. Before long, Hollywood came to embrace Culver City, Beverly Hills, Burbank, Bel-Air, Westwood, the San Fernando Valley, and Santa Monica. One film producer once said, "Hollywood itself is not an exact geographical area, although there is such a postal district. It has commonly been described as a state of mind, and it exists wherever people connected with the movies, life, and work." People from all over the world went to Hollywood in search of good weather and favorable lighting conditions. Small studios were established throughout Hollywood, and it was not until the 1920's when the studios later came to be called the "majors", and the movie stars were beginning to get paid vast salaries. These "majors" were the names we've grown to love over these years including Universal Pictures, Columbia, Twentieth Century Pictures, and United Artists.
