Thomas Dixon
Originally the Thomas Dixon studios, built in ca 1916-1917.  Dixon was a novelist, lawyer, and Southern Baptist preacher whose primary claim to fame was the novel The Clansman, an openly racist tome extolling the virtues of the KKK.  It spawned the 1915 film by D.W. Griffith, "The Birth of a Nation."

Expanding Production
Fox, who began making movies in New York, then Fort Lee, NJ added to his holdings when he leased William Selig's old studio on Allesandro in Edendale ca 1915.  He began searching for a new, larger location build a new, modern studio.  He purchased the Dixon studio in ca 1917 and proceeded to rebuild, making his first movie on the new lot in 1918 and closed the Edendale plant in 1919.

Fox expanded the small studio occupying both sides of Western Ave. and was one of Hollywood's larger studios at the time.