as using the electric railway to promote real estate investments. Through the creation of the Los Angeles Pacific lines, Sherman and Clark were key to the development of communities between Los Angeles and the coast, and of the area of the coast from Santa Monica to Redondo Beach. Their LAP Railroad featured the famous Balloon Route, an excursion that left Los Angeles and took a balloon-shaped rail trip involving stops at popular locations between Los Angeles and the ocean and then back to Los Angeles. The Balloon Route was popular with tourists and was instrumental in introducing potential homebuyers to the area. Sherman's work with the LAP was intimately tied to land acquisition, both as part of the construction of the rail lines, and as a means to promote the various real estate investments in which Sherman and Clark were involved. In 1900, along with developers Baker and Burbank, they purchased 1,500 acres in Hermosa Beach. Their Hermosa Beach Land and Water Company provided water; the developers built the first boardwalk and pier in 1901 and 1904. Initially served by the Santa Fe Railway, in mid-1904, the community would be served by LAP’s new Redondo Division car line. In addition, in 1903 Sherman and Clark purchased 200 acres north of Hermosa Beach and named it Shakespeare Beach, intending that it be a writer’s colony, but was unable to attract many writers. Several streets, such as Homer Street and Longfellow Avenue, remain from this original subdivision. Sherman became associated with several prominent businessmen over the years in ever-larger projects. This list of men included Harrison Gray Otis, Harry Chandler, Otto F. Brant, Hobart J. Whitley, Robert C. Gillis and others. The first such project concerned the development of Hollywood. In 1900, the LAP had built a line north of its Santa Monica Boulevard line in Colegrove which ran along Prospect Boulevard (now Hollywood Boulevard), assisted by a $25,000 bonus paid by Hobart J. Whitley, Col. Griffith J. Griffith, and P.J. Beveridge. In 1901 Whitley and Sherman created the Los Angeles-Pacific Boulevard Development Company, which organized a syndicate that bought and subdivided a 480-acre area in Hollywood, a development which Whitley called the Hollywood Ocean Vista Tract. The company built curbs and sidewalks, planted shrubbery, and donated land for a bank and for the future Hollywood Hotel. In 1902, Sherman and a syndicate of fifteen men purchased 1,000 acres of land around