The area that is now Beverly Hills was once a fertile, foothill site that provided ducks, antelope and other foods to the native Tongva Indians, who considered it a holy site called "The Gathering of the Waters."

A Spanish expedition led by Gaspar de Portola arrived in 1769, translating the native name into Spanish: "El Rodeo de las Aguas." By 1821, Mexico gained independence from Spain and the area fell under Mexican rule.

In the 1820s, retired Spanish soldier Vincente Ferrer Valdez came to live on 4,500-acre Rancho el Rodeo de las Aguas, changing the name to San Antonio. He built an adobe home and raised cattle. When Valdez died, his family kept the land.

After becoming a United States Territory at the end of the Spanish-American War, California became a state in 1850, and four years later, the Valdez family sold their land. The new owners grew wheat, but after one good year, drought made it impossible to continue. After that, sheep ranching and agriculture alternated with brief periods of oil and land speculation. In 1868, hopeful developers subdivided the land into 75-acre lots surrounding a town they called Santa Maria, where five-acre lots would sell for $10 each. 1880s speculators hoped to build a subdivision called Morocco, which also never materialized.

In 1900, Rodeo Land and Water Company took control, and landscape architect Wilbur D. Cook created the Beverly Hills cityscape we know today: large lots facing wide, curving streets lined with palm, eucalyptus and other trees. When one of the developers read a newspaper article about Beverly Farms, Massachusetts he decided Beverly was a pretty name, adding the word Hills to it, and Beverly Hills was born. By 1910, land sales were booming and the town began to take shape.

A streetcar line soon reached Beverly Hills, running down Sunset Boulevard from Los Angeles, and by 1915, the city was incorporated. Movie stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford built their home Pickfair here in 1919. Other celebrities and wealthy film industry people followed, and by 1928, Beverly Hills' reputation as the home of the stars was well-established and well-deserved. In the 1950s, Beverly Hills started marketing itself as one of the world's most glamorous places to shop, with Rodeo Drive at its center.