Sky Diving Southern California
Catalina Island - The Island Of Endless Adventure
Location: Located southwest of Los Angeles, and the only one of the eight Channel Islands of California Archipalego with a significant permanent population, in the two cities of Avalon and Two Harbors, with developments occurring at Middle Ranch and Rancho Escondido, Santa Catalina, a rocky, twenty-two mile long, eight mile wide at its largest point island, has Mount Orizaba, standing 2, 097 feet tall, as its highest elevation point.
Prehistory: Catalina Island was Prehistorically inhabited by Tongva and Gabrielino Native American Indians known for their mining and soapstone, that owned villages near Playa del Rey, underneath the Westchester Bluffs, and San Pedro, the home of the third longest suspension bridge in California, and regularly traded with Little Harbor, Shark, Avalon, and Emerald Bay on Catalina Island, calling the place Pimu or Pimunga. Discovered: On October 7, 1542 Portuguese Explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo claimed Catalina Island for Spain and named it San Salvador after his sailing vessel, and sixty years later, on November 24, 1602 Spanish Explorer Sebastian Vizcaino rediscovered the island and renamed it Santa Catalina. Other early visitors to the island included Yankee smugglers, especially at China Point, Russian otter hunters, and Russian Aleutian Islands natives that brought diseases to the island ultimately eradicating the Pimugnan peoples by the 1830s. History: In 1846 the Mexican government, who then owned the island, granted it to Thomas M. Robbins as Rancho Santa Catalina, and ownership changed hands several times until 1867. Catalina Island also experienced a small Gold Rush during the 1860s, and the United States Government, during the Civil War, ceased the mining operations by ordering the island vacated, placing a Union garrison on the isthmus for approximately nine months, and their barracks, now known as the Isthmus Yacht Club, is the oldest structure on Catalina Island. George Shatto and the Banning Brothers: With a few cattle farmers being the only occupants on Catalina Island at the end of the 1800s, the real estate boom of Southern California became a major factor in the island's development at Avalon as a resort location, with George Shatto and the Banning Brothers building the Hotel Metropole, the city's first motel, a dance pavilion in the center of town, an aquarium, a steamer-wharf, the Mens Only Pilgrim Gambling Club, more than one hundred affordable tent cities for less affluent tourists to afford to stay while visiting the island, stagecoach tours, hunting lodges, and the only hotel in Two Harbors, the Hotel St. Catherine in Descanso Canyon. William Wrigley Junior: The popularity of Catalina Island flourished under chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Junior, who baught Catalina Island in 1919, the steamers the Hermosa II, the S.S. Virginia, the S.S. Catalina, and the S.S. Cabrillo, created the 1927 Wrigley Ocean Marathon, built the Sugarloaf Casino, the Art Deco Dance Hall, the twelve story tall Catalino Casino, the Avalon Theater, the world's largest circular ballroom, and sold Catalina Clay Products Company pottery and tile artifacts to the growing tourist population of the island. Endemics: By Brett Matthew West - My Blogs:nashvillefromabridge.wordpress.com and medicalscene.wordpress.com
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Sky Diving Southern California News
As city hall goes up, so do costs - TriValley Central
3 Feb 2012 at 5:27am TriValley Central Toltec Elementary School Principal Mark Schnizlein went skydiving with members from Skydive Arizona to help his students celebrate the 100th day of school Friday. The first time Eloy Junior High School Band Director William Wells accepted an invitation ... |
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23 Jan 2012 at 3:48am Seattle Post Intelligencer So the episode begins on a private jet, and ... we actually did a special skydiving unit based on what happens on board the jet." December's set visit took place at an auditorium on a Southern California university campus, which doubles as a concert ... and more » |
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