The popular trail that hikers call “Fryman Canyon” is technically in Wilacre Park. Fryman Canyon Park itself is on Mulholland Drive. Regardless, both canyon and road are named for Harmon Christian “Harry” Fryman (1876-1946), an Ohio lad who came to Los Angeles in 1893 and made his name in the hotel industry – from bellboy to manager to full-fledged hotelier. (The Hotel Hayward, opened by Fryman on Spring Street in 1906, still stands; it’s now an apartment building.) Fryman, who lost his wife Mae to pneumonia in 1918, owned over a thousand acres in these hills by the 1920s. In 1939, he subdivided, with Donald Barker, some of this property into an upscale tract called Briarcliff Manor. Fryman Road was named in 1941. Postscript: Some falsely claim that Wilacre Park is named for “silent movie star Will Acres”. There was no such person. The name – etymology unknown, possibly a portmanteau of “wild acre” – comes from a company that owned the land in the 1970s. Previous owners include pharmacist Jules Viole, General Walter Perry Story, and the Lankershim Ranch Land & Water Company. It’s now owned by the State of California.
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