In 1926, 30 Hollywood businessmen decided to band together and organized the city's first service club. It was April of 1926 that these 30 men received the charter from Rotary International for the Hollywood Rotary Club.

Hollywood -- 81 years ago -- was a city of only 2,869 residents. It was a new city, with the first lot having been sold only five years earlier. . . the first city charter adopted in November of the previous year . . . and the first telephones had only been in service for just two years.

Things were booming! Within a few months, the Rotary Club had 43 members. . . so almost anyone who was anybody was a Rotarian.

Like the rest of South Florida, Hollywood was really a product of real estate developers who brought hordes of people to Florida. In 1925 alone, more than 2.5 million people poured into Florida where they were sold land so that they could become part of what was know as "Paradise on Earth."