Between 1600 and 1900 Catalina Island served as home or base of operation for all sorts of visitors, from Russian otter hunters, to Spanish smugglers, to Chinese pirates and Franciscan Monks.

 

In 1542, Juan Cabrillo was the European to discover Catalina. During the Civil War the North had a contingent of soldiers at Two Harbors. The Two Harbors barracks is now the Isthmus Yacht Club. How cool to be stationed here and spend the days fishing and swimming. People still come over for that, but there's a restaurant and a full bar, plus a quaint 11 room B&B which overlooks both sides of the island. Locals and visitors alike use it for a get-away.

 

After a series of owners, William Wrigley, Jr., the chewing gum guy, bought controlling interest sight unseen in 1919. He became sole owner when he found some of his partners were selling commercial property and bought them out. He then spent considerable energy building Avalon into a place people would love to visit.

 

In addition to building steamships to service Catalina, he created the Botanical Garden, Bird Park and the beautiful art- deco style Casino building. A 12,000 sq. ft. circular ballroom sits atop the Casino building and it also houses a movie theater on the ground floor-the first in the country built for "talkies". Casino, in this case, means "social gathering place". It was never a gambling casino. We use it for a variety of corporate functions.

 

Destination: Catalina is a full service destination management company.  We've been making heroes out of Corporate Planners and Management since 1990 by producing great meetings, by facilitating awesome teambuilding events, and by providing fun, relaxation and calories to both private and corporate groups.  Let Destination: Catalina show you how to do things differently.