The Untold History of Catalina Island History California California History California Hidden

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]One family owned an entire [music] California island for 50 years. The people who actually lived there for 7,000 years >> [music] >> never agreed to any of it. Catalina Island, Los Angeles County, 26 miles off the Southern California coast. [music] The Tongva people called it Pimu. They had lived there since at least 5,000 BC.

[00:00:19]Then the Spanish came, then the Mexican ranchers, [music] then the American speculators. The Tongva were forcibly removed to mainland [music] missions in the early 1800s. Their sacred island handed from owner to owner without a single conversation with the people who built their [music] entire civilization on it. 1919, William Wrigley Jr., the chewing gum billionaire, bought controlling interest in the Santa Catalina Island Company for $3 million.

[00:00:45]He didn't just buy land, [music] he bought an island. Every road, every building, every business, every beach.

[00:00:51]Wrigley built the Casino [music] Ballroom in 1929, brought the Chicago Cubs to train there every spring, built the Avalon Hotel, turned Catalina into [music] a glamour destination for Hollywood's golden age. Clark Gable fished here, Marilyn Monroe honeymooned here. In [music] 1975, the Wrigley family donated 88% of the island to the Catalina Island Conservancy, a genuine [music] conservation win. Over 50,000 acres of protected wild land. But here is what the [music] brochures never mention. The Tongva people have never stopped asserting their connection to Pimu. No federal recognition, no land [music] returned, no formal acknowledgement from the state of California that this island was taken from a people who called it home for seven millennia. The bison are still [music] there, 150 of them, left over from a 1924 film shoot. Nobody took them home either. To visit, [music] take the Catalina Express ferry from Long Beach, San Pedro, or Dana Point. Avalon is the main town. Two [music] Harbors for the wilderness experience. Book ahead in summer. Drop a comment if you knew the Tongva people [music] called this island Pimu for 7,000 years before anyone else arrived. Follow California history because [music] the Golden State's most beautiful places often hide its most complicated stories.