The master builder of Hollywood is Mr. HJ Whitley, who has been likened to Aladdin and his lamp, for wherever he has appeared towns have sprung up as if by magic. There is a string of them from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains along the Northern Pacific and along the Rock Island in Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma. He began operations in California in 1894.

The great premature boom in Los Angeles real estate had come and gone, leaving the country dotted over with moribund suburban undertakings. Hollywood was one of these. But it was just this failure, which has remained asleep for 14 years, that attracted the city builder. Whitley was always associated with big man and knew the value of such association. When, therefore, he would resurrect Hollywood, Knowing that the task before him, he picked out a number of associates he knew could and would stand with him shoulder to shoulder.