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Mount Lee

Los Angeles, Italy

Mount Lee

Mount Lee is a peak in the Santa Monica Mountains, located in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California, USA. The Hollywood Sign is located on its southern slope. History The original unnamed peak was one of the "three sisters" along with Cahuenga and Burbank peaks, the current flattened top being a

result of silent movie pioneer Mack Sennett's unfulfilled plans to build an elaborate home on the property. To advertise the new Beachwood Canyon real estate development, the developers, including Sennett and Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, ordered a huge wooden sign built atop what is now known as Mount Lee. The mountain is named after early Los Angeles car dealer and radio station owner Don Lee. Lee, a one-time bicycle shop owner who became a protégé of Los Angeles pioneer businessman Earle C. Anthony, purchased his Los Angeles radio station KHJ from Chandler in 1927. Four years later Lee began experimenting with television using call letters W6XAO. Studios were on the seventh floor of a building at Seventh and Bixel near his Cadillac dealership. A few years later, the transmitter was moved atop what is now called Mount Lee. An early reference to this name is in a June 1939 article in a magazine published by the California Chamber of Commerce: "Lee has bought a 20-acre site on a mountain top at the eastern boundary of Griffith Park, widening the transmission field of the Don Lee equipment to take in new thousands of homes in the Hollywood hills and the San Fernando Va

Listen to the audio guide for Mount Lee Free on WIP — starts by itself when you arrive, even with the screen off

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