Where "Hollywood" began (Los Angeles, California)

 place with historical importance, historical layer / disappeared object

In the early 1900s movie companies began to migrate west from New York, New Jersey, Chicago, and Philadelphia. There were two primary reasons: year round sunshine, and to escape the clutches of the Edison Trust (a story for another day). Some found San Diego to their liking, some Santa Barbara. Most, however landed in Los Angeles. First they went downtown, then east to Edendale, where many set up permanent studios, which survived through the 1920s

In 1911 the first studio was built in Hollywood.

The corner of Sunset and Gower is the epicenter for all that became the "Hollywood" movie industry. It was here that the first studio was built, and three of today's major studios began their lives. In the center of this area, and at the beginning, was the Christie/Nestor Studio, built in 1911, the first studio in Hollywood proper. It was built by the Nestor Brothers for use by the Christie Brothers. They created a partnership on the train ride from Bayonne, New Jersey, and thus, Hollywood began.

South, across Sunset Blvd. was IMP (Independent Motion Pictures), built by "Uncle" Carl Laemmle, a Russian immigrant. After several acquisitions, it became Universal Pictures in 1912. Nestor was merged into the new Universal company and they moved to the huge studio known today as Universal City on the edge of the San Fernando Valley. The site continued as Henry Lehrman's L-KO Komedies until it burned down.

In the northwest corner was Jesse Lasky Feature Play Company, the largest studio in the vicinity. Jesse Lasky and his producer, Samuel Goldfish (who became Sam Goldwyn) and his director, Cecil B. De Mille, arrived in 1913 to film Hollywood's first feature length feature, "The Squaw Man." In 1926, Lasky merged with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Company, and Paramount Distributors, and acquired the old Brunton Studios south of this location and moved the operation there. The combine took the name Paramount Pictures, and they remain the only major studio still in Hollywood today.

At the southeast corner of Sunset and Gower arose, over the next 20 years, two dozen or so tiny studios who regularly changed hands among very low budget producers, and became known collectively as Gower Gulch (also known as Poverty Row). Over time one of the small companies, CBC owned by Harry and Jack Cohn, and Joe Brandt, began to buy up the others (and their studios) and formed a larger company, eventually changing its name to Columbia Pictures. Harry Cohn became known as the most ruthless man in Hollywood.

A few blocks east of this location was a fourth of the majors, Warner Brothers. The other majors: (Disney, Fox, Metro, RKO, United Artists, First National) were in the process of beginning their lives in other areas of Hollywood, while two early east coast majors (Vitagraph and Biograph) moved here from New York.

These early efforts were documented in the Peter Bogdonovich film "Nickelodeon."