8 little known facts about the Hollywood sign

Hurray for the Hollywood sign

The iconic Hollywood sign located high above the Hills in Los Angeles was created in 1921 and erected in 1923. Many movies and television shows were filmed near the Hollywood hills, and the location is filled with nostalgia.

There have been stories about suicides and hauntings at the site, which cannot be confirmed. There are eight little-known facts about this landmark that have been verified.

1. Real estate developers are responsible

The sign was not initially created with the intent of promoting “movies and starlets”. The actual purpose was to advertise real estate. Two developers, Tracy E Shoults and S. H. Woodruff, began working on developing a new neighborhood, and the sign was supposed to become a ginormous billboard to attract new home buyers to the hillside area.

2. A British man designed the Hollywood sign.

Thomas Fisk Goff, the artist who created the Hollywood sign, was born in London, England, in 1890. He immigrated to the United States in the early 1920s and settled in Los Angeles. Goff opened the Crescent Sign Company and also painted landscapes on canvas. Shoults and Woodruff commissioned him to create and install the sign.

3. Initially, a temporary project

The Hollywood sign was supposed to be a temporary advertisement for the new real estate development. It was designed to only be in place for about 18 months, while lots were being sold for new homes to be built.

4. A name change

In the beginning, the first sign had 13 letters instead of 9. This was because the developers were going to call the location “HOLLYWOODLAND.” This is actually what people saw on the sign until 1949, when the last four letters were dropped.

5. 4,000 light bulbs

The light bulbs on the monicker were timed to blink so that each word“HOLLY,” “WOOD,” and “LAND” lit up consecutively, followed by the entire word.

This was considered quite modern and progressive at the time rather than tacky. Each bulb, only generated 8 watts of electric power, so 4,000 were needed to create the impressive display. Woodruff and Shoults felt this was necessary to sell building lots.

6. The billboard was expensive

The original Hollywoodland was intended to be a billboard advertisement for the real estate development only. It was quite expensive for that day and time. The construction cost was around $21,000, which is roughly the equivalent of $250,000 in 2013 dollars. This would be even more expensive now. Consider a new neighborhood being built and paying one quarter of a million dollars for just one sign to advertise it.

7. The sign initially had its own caretaker.

The real estate developers hired Albert Kothe to become the caretaker of the sign. In addition to other responsibilities, Kothe was in charge of maintaining the Hollywoodland sign. One of his assignments was to replace the lightbulbs on the sign whenever they burnt out. Keep in mind that there were 4,000 bulbs as well as the height of each letter being as high as 50 feet tall. This was no an easy job.

8. The original lettering on the Hollywood sign

The original letters were 50 feet tall and constructed with large sections of sheet metal. They were held in place by using a complicated framing system that included poles, wires, pipes, and a wooden scaffold.

All of this was a lot of time and money just for advertising a neighborhood. Today, for most people, the Hollywood sign represents Tinseltown and all that it stands for. Classic movie stars, films, and television shows have a history with the sign in the hillside.