Catalina Island, known as Pimu to the Tongva people who inhabited it for at least 7,000 years, was forcibly taken from its indigenous owners through Spanish colonization, Mexican ranching, and American speculation, with the Tongva being removed to mainland missions in the early 1800s without their consent; the island was later purchased by William Wrigley Jr. in 1919 for $3 million, transformed into a glamour destination, and partially donated to conservation in 1975, yet the Tongva people have never received federal recognition, land return, or formal acknowledgment from California for their millennia-long connection to this sacred territory.
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The Untold History of Catalina Island History California California History California HiddenAdded:
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.
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.
He didn't just buy land, [music] he bought an island. Every road, every building, every business, every beach.
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.
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