Daeida Wilcox Beveridge
Daeida Hartell Wilcox Beveridge (/daɪˈiː.də/; 1861 – August 7, 1914) co-founded and named the town of Hollywood, west of Los Angeles in 1887.
Born in Hicksville, Ohio, Daeida was the daughter of farmers Amelia and John Emerson Hartell, and attended private school in Hicksville and later public school in Canton, Ohio. She married prohibitionist Harvey Henderson Wilcox, and they moved to Kansas. In 1886 they moved to Southern California and purchased a 200 acres (0.81 km2) ranch of apricot and fig groves, outside of Los Angeles at the foot of the Hollywood Hills.
A few months after they acquired their new ranch, Daeida visited family and friends in her hometown of Hicksville. One legend tells that during the trip, she met a woman from the Chicago area, who lived on a country estate that she referred to as "Hollywood." Daeida liked the name, and upon returning to the Southern California ranch, named it "Hollywood". A second legend tells of it named after the holly-like red Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) berries abundant in the wintertime Hollywood Hills. A third legend tells of Daeida learning the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon (now Lake Hollywood) and a prominent L.A. investor.
In 1887 at the age of 25, she and her husband began to lay out a new town on their ranch, with a subdivision map filed for "Hollywood, California" with the Los Angeles County Recorder's office. He subdivided the property into lots. Daeida landscaped them, planting the first cultivated flower beds and California pepper (Schinus molle) trees in Hollywood. She also created names for the new streets, such as Sunset Boulevard, to appeal to buyers. Their ranch, purchased at $150 an acre, was sold for $1,000 a lot. The 1880s real-estate boom busted that same year, yet Hollywood began its slow growth.
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