Daeida Wilcox Beveridge

As co-founder of Hollywood with her first husband, H.H. Wilcox, and as the one who gave the place its name, Mrs. Daeida Wilcox Beveridge is deserving of the foremost place in any historical book of Hollywood for these reasons, and for her many good deeds in furthering all civic, social, and philanthropic movements in her community.

Mrs. Beveridge was born in Hicksville, Ohio, in 1862, the daughter of John Emerson and Amelia Hartell. She attended public school in Canton, and a private school in her native town. When still a young woman she married, and came to California with Mr. Wilcox in 1883. They settled first in Los Angeles, but after visiting what is now the Hollywood area, they were so charmed with it that they purchased 120 acres of land which included all but the northeast forty acres of a 160 acre section, bounded by the present Franklin Avenue on the north, Sunset Boulevard on the south, Gower on the east, and Whitley on the west. This property they subdivided into blocks of about four hundred feet square, cut roads through it, planted pepper trees, and recorded the plot under than name “Hollywood.”

During her many years of residence here, Mrs. Beveridge was active in the upbuilding of Hollywood. She died on August 14, 1914, leaving behind her monuments to her memory that will live as long as the community survives. She was a philanthropist in every sense of the word, and was the donor of grounds for the First Christian Church, the Methodist Church South, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, the Public Library, and the City Hall, of the old independent city of Hollywood. She was a woman of most exceptional business ability, and on the death of Mr. Wilcox in 1891, she took charge of the large property interests which they had acquired both in Los Angeles and Hollywood, and succeeded in enhancing the estate’s value considerably.

Mrs. Beveridge’s word, whether yes or no, could always be relied upon. She was a woman of forcible, yet kindly, nature, and had a very strong personality and impressed favorably everybody whom she met.

Her marriage to Philo J. Beveridge took place in 1894. She had two daughters, Marian, wife of Robert J. Pringle, and Phillis, wife of Clair B. Brunson.