Today's useless fact - Where did the name 'Hollywood' come from?

In 1886, H. H. Wilcox bought an area of Rancho La Brea that his wife then christened "Hollywood."

The sign, however, was put up in the 1920's by a real estate company as an advertisement for their new homes in a subdivision called "Hollywoodland", and, yes, he sign originally had all 13 letters. Hollywoodland's real estate development experienced a slide in the 1930s due to 1929 stock market crash. By the 1940s, no longer able to pay someone to maintain the sign, the developers abandoned it.

The sign was left derelict until 1949, when the 'H' toppled in the wind. The damage made people take notice. It was at that time that the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in - they offered to remove the last four letters of the sign (LAND) and repair the rest.

But sustained maintenance proved a somewhat trying task. As Hollywood itself started going to seed in the 1960s, the sign once again fell into disrepair. The Hollywood Kiwanis Club raised enough money to fix the damage, but soon after using the last of the funds to restore the 'D,' one of the 'O's crashed down the hill.

Fortunately, help was on the way. Hugh Hefner organized and hosted a party at his Mansion at which letters for a new sign would be sold at nearly $28,000 a pop. The adopt-a-letter campaign worked, and aided by Gene Autry (who bought an 'L') and rocker Alice Cooper ('O'), among others, Hefner ('Y') raised enough to prop those letters back up where they belonged.

And while Hollywood itself may forever change and adapt with the trends that circulate around it, the sign can look forward to a long and happy life, complete with the occasional facelift. Check out the links in our Hollywood category for more.