History of Santa Catalina Island

Archeological evidence shows Pimugnan settlement beginning in 7000 BC. The Pimugnans had settlements all over the island at one time or another, with their biggest villages being at the Isthmus and at present-day Avalon, Shark/Little Harbor, and Emerald Bay. The Pimugnans were renowned for their mining, working and trade of soapstone which was found in great quantities and varieties on the island. This material was in great demand and was traded along the California coast.

Archaeologists have learned much about these tribes from middens, ancient dumps where they tossed everything they no longer needed. These middens can today be identified by mounds of crumbled abalone shells. It is estimated that there are over 2,000 middens on Catalina Island, only half of which have been discovered. Evidence from these middens indicate that around 2000 B.C as many as 2,500 lived on Catalina Island.

The first European to set foot on the island was the Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, who sailed in the name of the Spanish crown. On October 7, 1542, he claimed the island for Spain and christened it San Salvador after his ship. (Catalina has also been identified as one of the many possible burial sites for Cabrillo.) Over half a century later, another Spanish explorer, Sebastián Vizcaíno, rediscovered the island on the eve of Saint Catherine's day (November 24) in 1602. Vizcaino renamed the island in the saint's honor.

The colonization of California by the Spanish coincided with the decline of the Pimugnans. They suffered from the introduction of new diseases to which they had little immunity and the disruption of their trade and social networks caused by the establishment of the California missions. By the 1830s, the island's entire native population were either dead or had migrated to the mainland to work in the missions or as ranch hands for the many private land