West Hollywood's History

Edited from an article by Robert Vulcan,Founder, West Hollywood Historical Society

The area now comprising the City of West Hollywood has a long and colorful history. To begin at the beginning...

The Gabrielino Indians, whose hunting and foraging economy rested on native chapparal and limited clearings, were the area's first residents. In the 1700s, the Spanish Crown awarded rights to graze cattle and sheep; then in 1828 Mexico granted an area roughly bordered by what is now Robertson Boulevard, Wilshire Boulevard, Gower Street and the Cahuenga Pass to Antonio Jose Rocha. Named Rancho La Brea, it was subsequently sold to Henry Hancock, whose name is memorialized in Hancock Park.

During the last quarter of the 19^th Century, long after California had changed from Mexican to U.S. hands, the agricultural economy of the "foothills" strip, including what is now West Hollywood, began to change. Los Angeles, 10 miles distant, was becoming a good market for fruits and vegetables, and the frost-free foothills, with near-surface ground water, were available at a low price compared to easterly areas. In 1874 Don Eugenio Plummer acquired a portion of what is now West Hollywood and built his home and farm. Soon there were a number of parcels subdivided and sold for farms growing peas, beans, chiles, fruits and vegetables for the Los Angeles market.

One of the early movers and shakers in Los Angeles was Moses H. Sherman, who had a grand plan to lay an electric railway connecting Los Angeles with the fine beaches of Santa Monica. His Los Angeles Pacific Railway Co. needed to place to put up car barns, metal shops, an electric generating station, offices, etc., and in 1898 this complex was erected at the western terminus of the Los Angeles line. It was at the corner of Venice and San Vicente, where it intersected with a San Vicente Boulevard spur of the Venice Boulevard line. This was dubbed Sherman Station, and the settlement of workers' houses and small neighborhood stores which developed became known as the town of "Sherman" within the unincorporated part of Los Angeles County. Sherman eventually spread north into the area now known as West Hollywood.

A few years later, when the silent movie industry was active in Hollywood and the Beverly Hills pioneers had begun to establish that suburban satellite of the movie colony, a Booster (real estate salesman) with subdivided lots for sale in what is now West Hollywood enthused:

"Sherman is especially well suited, being located between Hollywood and Beverly, two of the finest and most rapidly growing suburbs of Los Angeles. Both of these places are peopled by a high class of citizens and are noted for their beautiful homes."

He noted that real estate was less expensive in "Sherman" than in its more highly urbanized neighbors, that it was only a 20-minute ride on the Pacific Electric to the Hill Street "subway" terminal in Los Angeles, and, "indeed, one could make a comfortable living growing winter vegetables for the market" on the spacious home lots which he had available at a bargain price.

In the following decades there continued to be a spill-over from Hollywood and Beverly Hills into the unincorporated County areas, which included what is now West Hollywood and areas to the south of the present borders. As the automobile began to challenge the electric railway as the normal means of travel, the "Sherman Station" concentration of homes became less significant, and roads and streets were laid in to permit extensive subdivision of residential lots and small stores. As time went on, all of the land in the region became more expensive. The West Hollywood area followed the regional trend of multi-unit structures such as duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, "garden courts," and easily constructed one- and two-story structures of eight to twelve units.

Meanwhile, quite different things were happening to the north, on Sunset Boulevard. By 1920, there had been a spill-over of higher-priced residences westward from Hollywood along this beautiful foothill strip.

The movie world became attracted to this less-restricted unincorporated County land to the west, and "Sunset Strip" was born. In the 1920s and 1930s came nightclubs, one large and several minor movie studios, and a number of architecturally fine apartment houses and apartment hotels built to cater to those free-spending people of the movie colony.

Movie fans throughout the world heard about the Stars and their haunts on the Sunset Strip. Even in Los Angeles, while very few had ever heard of "Sherman," everyone knew that Ciro's, the Mocambo, the Trocadero, the Garden of Allah, Schwab's Drug Store, the Chateau Marmont and movie stars were to be found on the Sunset Strip. Even when the movie colony no longer found Hollywood fashionable and the extravagant night clubs lost favor, the Strip continued to prosper as an attraction for locals and out-of-town tourists who patronized its restaurants, bars and clubs.

In the late '60s, the Strip transformed again during the "hippie" phenomenon. Youngsters from all over the nation flocked to West Hollywood clubs such as the Whiskey A-Go-Go and the Troubadour, venues which proved to be stepping stones to fame for many new musical groups. All of this activity led to the establishment of West Hollywood as the home of a thriving music publishing industry.

In the 1970s still another outside influence changed what by that time was no longer "Sherman," but "West Hollywood." In the early 1970s, the gay movement became more assertive of its rights, more gays felt free to come "out of the closet," and the Los Angeles City Police Department in reaction developed a high-profile homophobic stance.

As a unincorporated section of Los Angeles County, West Hollywood was beyond the LAPD's reach, so there was an influx of gays who wanted and could pay for better housing, and who were excellent customers of up-graded service and merchandise establishments. In just a few years, commercial sections were revitalized, high-rise and other attractive residential structures were built for unit rental and condo ownership, and a new vibrant tone became part of the West Hollywood community.

West Hollywood has also provided a new home for a group of refugees: Russian Jews, in a spill-over from the Fairfax area of Los Angeles. Including both elderly persons, who blend in with the area's many senior citizens, and enterprising younger families with children, their presence is noted by many merchants' signs appearing bi-lingually in English and Russian.

In 1983 a grass roots movement to incorporate West Hollywood into a new city took hold. In rapid succession, residents of the area mobilized to put the issue to a vote in the November, 1984, election, and the proposal passed with flying colors. Simultaneously, voters elected the City's first Council, singling out five candidates from a field of forty.

Today the City of West Hollywood has established itself as a vibrant, progressive urban village that looks forward to a new era of civic pride in the years ahead.