This week we look back on a little tidbit of Catalina’s history; a tidbit of the variety that you probably won’t hear on any tour or read in any history book.
This week we look back on a little tidbit of Catalina’s history; a tidbit of the variety that you probably won’t hear on any tour or read in any history book.
If you’re not a history buff, don’t let your eyes glaze over yet because this story is a good one. And unless you read Chuck Liddell’s Time Capsule column several months ago touching on this subject, I can virtually guarantee that you haven’t heard this tale of town founder George Shatto and a little trick he pulled on a pair of young ladies during his first trip to the Island.
On the morning of July 13, 1887, the man who is largely considered to be Avalon’s “George Washington”—George Rufus Shatto—found himself with his business agent Charles Sumner boarding the S.S. Falcon for his first trip to the Island of Santa Catalina, which he had purchased sight unseen from the James Lick Estate only the day before.
A year before that, Shatto had sold his department store in Michigan and moved to Southern California to jump into the then-booming real estate business. As it turned out, Catalina Island would figure into his plans.
As the little steamer entered the channel, into the domain of the bounding swells of the North Pacific, two young ladies joined the men in the cabin on the ship’s lee side.
The two women were elated about something to the point of giddiness, and to the surprise of both men the women informed them they were making a “scouting” trip to the Island for a newly-formed real estate syndicate in Pasadena. This syndicate, they were told, wished to purchase the Island from the Lick Estate, obviously unaware that the Island was no longer for sale. Shatto had beat them to the punch.
For reasons upon which we can only speculate, Mr. Shatto decided not to disclose to the young ladies the fact that he had, in fact, purchased the Island only the day before.
Perhaps he felt it would not be gentlemanly for him to burst their bubble. Perhaps from a professional standpoint he didn’t want it known yet to any of the other passengers that they were sailing through the briny deep with the new owner of this marvelous destination to which they were headed.
For whatever reason, Shatto refused to inform them that they and their newly-formed syndicate were a day late and a dollar short.
The women seemed certain that it was a “done deal” for them and they excited told a bemused Shatto that they were going to look over “Timm’s Landing” (the name of Avalon Canyon in those days) to determine the best site for the erection of a grand hotel and bathhouse.
Still, Shatto said nothing.
He even graciously offered to assist the young ladies in their selection of the site for this would-be edifice and most of the rest of that day was spent hiking around the canyon, enjoying the views and the solitude. “There was everywhere to walk,” wrote local historian Catherine MacLean Loud of Avalon Canyon in those days, “and no one to meet.”
Since there was no hotel on the Island yet, all of the ship’s passengers returned to sleep aboard the Falcon that evening. One can only imagine the excited plans being bandied about by the young ladies by lantern light as Shatto and Sumner no doubt sat nodding their heads in approval.
The following morning, the charade continued and the foursome agreed on the best location for a hotel, smack in the middle of the beach facing the bay.
The bathhouse, it was determined, would be located nearly 300 feet to the east, about where the Pancake Cottage is today.
Still, Shatto said nothing.
As the Falcon sailed back across the channel that day and once again into San Pedro Harbor, Shatto and Sumner no doubt felt they were nearly home free.
But greeting them at the dock were the newsboys hawking newspapers that loudly declared that Catalina Island had been sold to George R. Shatto and Charles A. Sumner for $200,000, leaving the pair’s female acquaintances drop-jawed.
So what did our two heroes do about this? They quickly disappeared into a Los Angeles-bound train and boarded the men-only “smoker” car, never to see the young ladies again.
