H. J. Whitley's responsibilities and the continuous strain of business effort brought about a breakdown in health, and on the advice of his physicians he came to California in 1893. He was soon afterward employing his talents and means in local constructive enterprises, although his interests elsewhere have always continued large. His greatest task and the scene of his best work has been in the district of Hollywood and the contiguous territory of the San Fernando Valley. From an open country he developed the modern Hollywood, having as his associates some of the most prominent business men of Los Angeles. Individually, however, he owned the principal interests and had the chief burdens of management. He was the first to conceive the idea of making Hollywood a suburb of Los Angeles. Largely through his efforts water was distributed throughout the Hollywood Hills. He donated five tracts of lands, two reservoir sites and other grounds which today are valued by the water company (1921) at nearly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He also gave nearly the entire site for the Hollywood Hotel and the First National Bank property and organized the bank. He was a large stockholder in these and other institutions which developed Hollywood. He put in the first electric light and telephone systems. It was his influence that attracted the assistance of E. P. Clark and Gen. M. H. Sherman in the building the electric line through Hollywood. The splendid boulevards, Sunset and Hollywood were conceived in his original plan for the development of Hollywood. Up to that time surburban development around Los angeles had encountered baffling obstacles, and it was the sheer will, force and able management of Mr. Whitley that brought about the first real suburban success.
Link to purchase:
Los Angeles From the Mountains to the Sea
Los Angeles from the Mountains to the Sea: With Selected Biography of Actors and Witnesses to the Period of Growth and Achievement; Volume 3
The American Historical Society
New York 1921