From Santa Cruz Islands Foundation. Story about hotel Metropole on Catalina
Island.
-----Original Message-----
From: California Islands Curiosity Correspondent <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: cfrench1366@xxxxxxx
Sent: Thu, May 20, 2021 12:30 pm
Subject: GEORGE SHATTO’S HOTEL METROPOLE
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| ONCE UPON A RESORT ~
GEORGE SHATTO’S HOTEL METROPOLE
PART 1 |
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| It’s hard to imagine more luxurious 19th century accommodations on a
California island than the Hotel Metropole in Avalon Bay on Santa Catalina
Island. For twenty-seven years, it served thousands of adventurous guests who
ventured to the offshore island that could be seen some 22 miles from the
mainland. |
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| Shatto’s three story Hotel Metropole, c. 1888. A steamer trunk sits on a
dolly on the wharf; two boatmen have pulled a small skiff ashore. To the right
and in close proximity to the hotel is a windmill. People can be seen on the
hotel’s paved front walkway and first floor side porch.
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| George Rufus Shatto (1850-1893) |
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| George Rufus Shatto hailed from Chatham Ohio, the seventh of eight children.
In 1876 he married Clara “Claressa” Ruth Whitney in Flint, Michigan. He became
interested in real estate speculation in nearby Grand Rapids, but after their
only child died of cholera at 7 months of age, George and Clara Shatto moved to
southern California. In Los Angeles the Shattos found multiple business
opportunities, acquiring real estate on Crown Hill (the rise west of Figueroa
Street bounded by Figueroa and Alvarado streets and Olympic and Beverly
boulevards), and they subdivided Orange Heights in 1887, where their built
their elegant home at 1213 Orange Street (later Wilshire Blvd.). |
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| Los Angeles home of George and Clara Shatto, (1892) |
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| The 37-year-old Shatto also purchased all of the interests in Santa Catalina
Island for $200,000 from the trustees of the Lick estate in 1887. Shatto was
the first to envision the development of a resort town on the island. His
wife’s sister-in-law, Etta Whitney, renamed the bay known as Timm’s Landing, to
Avalon, after a line in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, Idylls of the King. |
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| Shatto’s steamer Ferndale (far left) in Avalon Bay, c. 1888. |
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| With George Shatto came the arrival of tourism. From 1887-1892, he invested
heavily in the island, building a pier in the bay, purchasing the steamer
Ferndale, and constructing the magnificent 3-story Hotel Metropole on an
otherwise nearly deserted valley mouth. Digging the foundation of the hotel,
workmen shoveled through a vast midden area full of Indian artifacts—bowls,
pipes, beads, arrow points—many of them made from the island’s soapstone.
Scavengers took everything they found. |
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| Shatto’s steamer Ferndale (right) departing Avalon Harbor.
Alonzo Wheeler’s sailboat Ruby (center) is at anchor, c. 1888. |
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| Shatto purchased the 140-ft steamer, Ferndale, built in San Francisco in
1880, for passenger service. The summer season of 1888, Ferndale became the
first regularly scheduled steamship service to Santa Catalina Island, carrying
campers and hotel guests every day. Ferndale crossed from San Pedro to Avalon
Bay on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and returned to the mainland on
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The one-way trip took about four hours on a
good day, and the round-trip fare was $3. In addition, Shatto asked Captain
William Banning to schedule one of his coastal steamers to make three weekly
trips between Avalon and San Pedro to accommodate his vision of turning the
island into a tourist destination. Banning’s Hermosa made her maiden voyage to
Shatto’s Santa Catalina Island on April 28, 1889, the first of many Banning
vessels built for their Wilmington Transportation Company, which would service
the Catalina Island trade. They would soon come to own the island. |
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| Avalon’s streets fanned out along the bay around Shatto’s large waterfront
Hotel Metropole.
[Sherman Library, Corona del Mar] |
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| Shatto spent $40,000 on engineering surveys, maps and plans. He subdivided
land in Avalon Harbor, laid out streets, and sold about 200 lots, with prices
ranging from $150 to $2000. For the first time, people could pitch tents and/or
build summer cottages on their private property. Under Shatto’s five-years of
island ownership, many island firsts were established, including:
- opening of a souvenir shop, the Avalon Shell Store (1888);
- organization of the Avalon Congregational Church (1889);
- publication of a weekly newspaper, Catalina Jewfish (1889);
- formation of the Catalina School District (1891);
- establishment of a voting precinct in the Hotel Metropole (1890s);
- and the birth of the first children born in tents in Avalon (1892).
The wife of the pastor of the church, Mrs. M. P. Morris, served as Avalon’s
first teacher. Alonzo and Sophie Wheeler paid Shatto $2660 for five lots of
Block 4 along the waterfront directly to the east of the Hotel Metropole, where
they built a grocery store and bakery. They later added lodging, the Avalon
Home, located on the west corner of Crescent and Sumner avenues. On April 17,
1892, Douglas Avalon MacDonnell, born in a tent, was hailed as the first
islander, followed a few months later by the arrival Ola Avalon Finch. At least
eighteen original street names celebrate Shatto’s development in Avalon Bay.
Claressa Avenue he named for his wife; Sumner was his real estate agent;
Whitney his wife’s maiden name. |
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| Avalon Bay in the early 1890s. A tent city, cottages and businesses
developed around
Shatto’s Hotel Metropole. The First Congregational Church (lower foreground)
was built.
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| The Banning Brothers’ steamer Hermosa (1889-1902) at the Hotel Metropole,
early 1890s. |
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| Five years after extensive investments in his island purchase, Shatto’s
dreams of his Avalon resort faded when he was unable to keep up with his
mortgage payments. The island reverted back to the trustees of the Lick estate
from whom he had purchased it. They resold the island interests, including the
Hotel Metropole, to the Banning brothers: William Banning (1858-1945), Joseph
Brent Banning (1861-1920), and Hancock Banning (1865-1925). By this time, their
vessel Hermosa had already been serving the newly developing tourist trade to
Avalon for several years. The Bannings’ Wilmington Transportation Company also
bought Ferndale from Shatto. |
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| Shatto pyramid, Angeles Rosedale Cemetery, Los Angeles |
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| The year after he gave up the island, Shatto was killed in a train accident
while returning from the Mojave Desert where he had gone to inspect some mining
property. He had missed the southbound Southern Pacific passenger train, so he
hitched a ride on a freight train. That evening while resting in the caboose, a
special freight train, not scheduled, rounded a blind curve and rear-ended the
caboose in which Shatto was riding, killing him instantly. Shatto was 42 years
old. He is buried in Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery, Los Angeles County, in a large
stone pyramid. His wife, Clara, went on to manage their real estate holdings,
carrying out additional subdivisions. She outlived her husband by nearly 50
years, becoming a well-known dowager philanthropist. Clara donated LaFayette
Park to the City of Los Angeles, and she donated the land upon which the First
Congregational Church was built. The elegant Shatto home was torn down in the
1920s to make way for the Good Samaritan Hospital. Clara “Claressa” Shatto
(1853-1942), died in Beverly Hills in March 1942 at age 89. She is interred in
the stone pyramid next to her husband. |
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| THE CALIFORNIA ISLANDS—
SAVING THEIR HISTORY, TELLING THEIR STORIES.
Respectfully submitted,Your Faithful California Islands Curiosity Correspondent
Note: The San Clemente Island Goat Stamp has been released. |
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| PLEASE NOTE OUR CHANGE OF ADDRESS:
Santa Cruz Island Foundation
Chrisman California Islands Center
4994 Carpinteria Avenue
Carpinteria, CA 93013 |
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