For nearly a century, the Hollywood Sign has stood on the southern slope of Mount Lee overlooking the city of Los Angeles. First constructed in 1923 to advertise the exclusive real estate development known as “Hollywoodland”, the sign used 4,000 light bulbs to illuminate different sections in succession; the word “Holly” would light up first, followed by “Wood,” then “Land,” and finally the whole sign.

Mount Lee has a long history that parallels the rise of Los Angeles. The peak is one part of the Santa Monica Mountains, a small coastal range that runs parallel to the Pacific Ocean for 40 miles (64 km) north of the densely populated Los Angeles Basin. Archeological studies of Native American sites found throughout the range suggest that ancestors of the Tongva and Chumash people inhabited this region for more than eight thousand years prior to the Spanish conquest in the late 18th century.

During the silent, “Tinseltown” years of Hollywood, the land at the peak was purchased by Keystone Cops producer and so-called "King of Comedy" Mack Sennett. Sennett flattened the top of the mountain with the intent of building a palatial home for himself with views of the entire city right in the heart of the new Hollywoodland development. 

Promotions for the real estate location were as flashy as could be expected from the filmmakers who lived there. During the early 1920s, press cameramen were brought to film the detonation of eight thousand pounds of dynamite on the hill, the construction of the demo home was set to be filmed in its entirety, and even Sennett brought his group of "bathing beauties" (women who often appeared in his films) to pose on excavators at the construction site. However, Hollywoodland's most lasting marketing campaign was under construction just a few dozen feet below Sennett's abode on the mountainside.

The construction of the iconic Hollywood Sign, then the Hollywoodland Sign, was overseen by publicist John Roche. Over the course of 60 days, mules carried wood and stone up 1,700 feet for workers to construct 13 block letters, 30 feet wide and 50 feet tall. By mid-1923, the sign in all its glory was complete.

Only a few years later though, the stock market crash of 1929 and the advent of the talking film brought a decline to Sennett's career and dried up the funds for both his house and most of the Hollywoodland project. After its conclusion the sign stayed standing, a monument to the now absent real estate location.

With Sennett’s dream crushed, the prepared land was eventually sold to the Don Lee Broadcasting System which built a radio and television transmitting station on the location. Today, the transmitting station is owned by the City of Los Angeles, and much of the surrounding land is part of Griffith Park, one of the largest urban parks in the United States, but the Hollywood Sign remains the most iconic image of the area.

As the film industry’s cultural importance grew, the sign quickly became a bright beacon for those seeking stardom and a symbol for the entertainment industry. By 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce entered an agreement to oversee and repair the sign. The word “LAND” was removed and the sign was given a fresh coat of paint. Yet, over the next few decades, the sign gradually slipped into disrepair as time, neglect, and vandalism took their toll.

Before the major renovation, there were sporadic efforts to preserve the original sign. The beginning of the decade saw the Hollywood Kiwanis Club pay for a refurbishment, and the site was named a Los Angeles Historical-Cultural Monument, but it was truly the rise of the New Hollywood movement of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola that helped to revitalize the city and the sign in turn. Fundraisers were soon organized by Friends of the Hollywood Sign Committee and Save the Sign Committee.

The 1973 renovation was celebrated with a gala worthy of Old Hollywood, complete with an unveiling by actress Gloria Swanson, but just three years later, weathering had stripped away much of the restoration. A 1976 Save the Sign campaign also failed to restore the sign, as did an amateur grassroots effort at raising money. Only in 1978 did a successful effort come together that would abandon the old sign entirely and rebuild it from scratch.

The reconstruction of the Hollywood Sign was financed primarily by private fundraising efforts led by Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner. Hefner brought together an unlikely group of entertainers, from silver screen legend Gene Autry to theatrical shock rocker Alice Cooper, who each sponsored a letter in the new sign. With the money raised, City Council members Joel Wachs and Peggy Stevenson secured the permits needed for the reconstruction.

The old sign was demolished and rebuilt in a sturdier configuration, using twenty steel footings set deep into the earth as opposed to the telephone poles originally used. Each new letter was made from corrugated steel and white enamel. In all, the job cost $250,000 and took three months; no small effort, but the results speak for themselves. The sign still stands today, a lasting symbol of Los Angeles and of moviemaking itself.