'Walk of Faith' tour tells of Hollywood's Christian beginnings

Religion News Service ^ | 2019 | Heather Adams

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Walking past the First Baptist Church of Hollywood, April Clemmer pauses.

“This church is a survivor,” she tells the dozen or so people taking her Walk of Faith tour in a neighborhood better known for its movie-star-spangled Walk of Fame...

Clemmer, a Los Angeles resident and a Baptist herself, came up with the Walk of Faith tour last winter, after spending a decade researching Hollywood history. To her surprise, the deeper she looked, the more she found that the place synonymous with the American movie industry — and now clogged with lingerie stores, tobacco shops and fast-food outlets — was founded as an alcohol-free Christian community.

Clemmer starts each tour with a brief introduction and prayer — encouraging people to pray however they want. Then she takes people back to 1887, when the name Hollywood first appeared on an official document, and four years after Daeida and Harvey Wilcox, who had made a fortune in real estate in Topeka, Kan., moved to Los Angeles.

The couple bought 120 acres centered at what would become the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, and after Harvey's death and Daeida's subsequent remarriage, Daeida began creating her vision of a Christian preserve...

In 1905, the Los Angeles Times described it as a place where "the saloon and its kindred evils are unknown.”...Instead, it was filled with churches...

By 1910, Daeida's town of 500 had expanded to about 5,000, and water scarcity forced Hollywood to incorporate into the booming city of Los Angeles. The detested saloons followed soon after, and by the time Daeida died in 1914, her vision was doomed as well.

But now some people are interested in getting back to some of the dream Daeida had.

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While the typical Hollywood tour might include tourists, the majority of the Walk of Faith attendees are locals — and that’s how Clemmer wants it.

“It’s important for local Christians to know there is a foundation of faith in Hollywood and that it’s something that can be reclaimed,” she said.

The cross, erected on one of Hollywood's famous hills and visible from Highway 101, was built to honor Stevenson, who was instrumental in building the Hollywood Bowl and the Pilgrimage Theater, a venue dedicated to religious shows. Despite run-ins with vandals, fires and a dispute with the American Civil Liberties Union, the cross still stands today.

“If you think you don’t have a community in Hollywood that are fighting for good and for the gospel, think about those people,” Clemmer said, referring to those who have fought to keep the cross up.

Along for that day's tour were Maralisa Ortiz and Natalie Myers, both 20-year-old students at Biola, a private evangelical Christian university in La Mirada, south of LA. They pronounced themselves impressed and surprised.

“I’ve never heard of something like this before — a Christian tour in Hollywood,” Natalie Myers said. “Hollywood’s not really thought of like that.”

“I like how she was like, ‘Hey, we need to pray for these people,’” Ortiz said. “‘We need to focus on them in your prayers and remember them because the city that was once Christ-centered has fallen. And we need to pray for that.’”

[Cold Heart]

Nice article

[freepertoo]

She looks very sweet.

[Fiji Hill]

Hollywood was also the home of the Country Church of Hollywood, a small wooden church from which a radio show of the same name was broadcast from the 1930's to the 1960's. The show promoted evangelical Christianity and featured a musical group, the Goose Creek Quartet whose members included Dick Brown and John Lundberg, two heavy hitters in the world gospel music in LA in the 1950's as well as Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice of Tony the Tiger in the TV ads for breakfast cereal. (In his last years, Ravenscroft lived in the retirement home where my mother lived.)

Although those who ran the church vowed to keep it open until the return of Jesus Christ, it ceased functioning in 1997. In 2004, I sought it out and found that it was almost hidden from public view by the high fence that surrounded. Three years later, an arsonist burned it down.