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The Bannings
In 1892 the island was purchased by three brothers, William, Hancock
and Judge Joseph B. Banning and in 1894 they formed the Santa Catalina Island Company. These three men were the sons of Phineas Banning, a man who had come to California in 1851 and developed much of the wharf and warehouse area of what is now San Pedro. Phineas was a hard working businessman and renowned for participating in facilitating the telegraph communication system that linked Los Angeles to San Francisco, and for his elaborate style of entertaining. In June of 1859, he took guests on a sumptuous champagne voyage to Catalina, but did not live to see his son’s purchase of Catalina as he was mortally wounded in a traffic ( wagon / street car ) accident in San Francisco in 1885.
The Bannings, like their predecessor Shatto, focused attention on
tourism, running ships from their father’s port to Catalina for 30 years, beginning in 1884. They built hotels, restaurants, a Greek theater, an aquarium, a dance pavilion, and offered sight seeing tours, including the famous glass bottom boats. They provided lodging for all classes of people, from elegant hotels accommodations, to tent houses with maid service.
The Bannings opened up roads to the interior of the island for sight
seeing. The ride was very rough, made by a six horse-drawn stagecoach connecting Avalon to the Isthmus at Twin Harbors. The often harrowing trip included an overnight stay at Eagle’s Nest Lodge in the Middle Ranch Canyon. By 1898 the road, an engineering feat, was completed. Visits to the Isthmus included visiting the oldest buildings on the island - the Civil War barracks, built in 1864, and then later, Judge B. Banning’s home built in 1909, and for a short time, the notorious Chinese pirate junk ( boat ), the Ning Po, moored in 1914. The coaches ran until 1914 when road widening enabled inland travel by the new automobile.
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