Two Harbors Isthmus, Santa Catalina Island

Two Harbors, colloquially known as "The Isthmus", is a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

island village on the island of Santa Catalina Island, California, with a population of 298 (

Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...

of 2000). It is the second center of population on the island, besides the city of Avalon. It is mainly a resort village. It has only one restaurant, one hotel and one general store. The village has about 150 permanent residents who live on the isthmus year-round. One notable feature was the one-room schoolhouse which closed in 2014.

Geography

Two Harbors is a small island village located approximately from

San Pedro Harbor San Pedro ( ; Spanish: "St. Peter") is a neighborhood within the City of Los Angeles, California. Formerly a separate city, it consolidated with Los Angeles in 1909. The Port of Los Angeles, a major international seaport, is partially located wi ...

on Santa Catalina Island. On the island's narrow isthmus, it is located about 18 miles from the only city on the island, Avalon. It is named for the two harbors separated by the 770 m section of land separating the leeward (northern) Isthmus Cove (aka Banning Harbor) and Catalina (or Cat) Harbor on the windward (southern) side, which together almost cut off the northwestern sixth (31.7 km) from the main part of the island. White Rock Island, commonly known as Bird Rock, is a small privately owned island only 6312 m² in size. It is approximately northeast of Two Harbors, offshore from Isthmus Cove, and northwest of the closest coastal point.

History

The area where Two Harbors is located was originally referred to simply as the Isthmus of Catalina Island. By the 1860s, mining operations for

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, ...

and

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

took place in the area. In 1864, during the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

, the

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

sent 83 soldiers to the island to establish Camp Santa Catalina Island, both to protect the area from Confederate privateers and survey the isthmus and adjacent Catalina Harbor for the

Bureau of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to American Indians and A ...

as a location for a future

Indian reservation An Indian reservation is an area of land held and governed by a federally recognized Native American tribal nation whose government is accountable to the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs and not to the state government in which it ...

for "militant" tribes captured in the Bald Hills War. However, the reservation idea was abandoned and so was the camp. The barracks that the Army built on the isthmus were later used to house visiting film crews in the 1920s and 1930s, a contingent of the U.S. Coast Guard during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and in 1951 became the home of the Isthmus Yacht Club. The ''Ning Po'', a Chinese merchant ship built in 1753 and involved in over a century of war, rebellion, and piracy, eventually found its way to Catalina and was converted into a tourist attraction in 1913. The Ning Po burned off the western shore of the isthmus in 1938. The fire which destroyed her also claimed several wooden sailing vessels that had been used in filming motion-picture "spectaculars", including the famous old down-Easter " Llewellyn J. Morse" which stood in for the — with accurate re-rigging — in the silent film '' Old Ironsides''.

Education

Primary and secondary schools

Two Harbors is part of the

Long Beach Unified School District The Long Beach Unified School District is a school district headquartered in Long Beach, California, United States. Established in 1885, Long Beach Unified School District now educates 81,000 students in 84 public schools in the cities of Lon ...

. The one-room school closed in 2014 due to sharply declining enrollment. School age children now attend Avalon Schools K-12.

Colleges and universities

The

USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies The USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies is an environmental research and education facility run by the University of Southern California. It is an organized research unit that encompasses a wide range of faculty and topics across the ...

is an environmental research and education facility run by the University of Southern California in Two Harbors. The campus consists of a 2,800 square-meter (30,000 square-foot) laboratory building, a dormitory housing, a cafeteria, a hyperbaric chamber, and a large waterfront staging area complete with dock, pier, helipad, and diving lockers. The facility was made possible by a donation from the Wrigley family and was named for

Philip K. Wrigley Philip Knight Wrigley (December 5, 1894 – April 12, 1977), often called P. K. Wrigley, was an American chewing gum manufacturer and a Major League Baseball executive, inheriting both of those roles as the quiet son of his much more flamboyant fa ...

Transportation

Two Harbors is served by ferry lines with regular daily service to San Pedro. A helicopter can also be chartered to the village. The Catalina Airport-In-The-Sky is away to the east. Alternatively, various charter boats offer private service to the island. Most people generally walk or bike around and between Two Harbors and its neighboring campgrounds, Little Harbor and Parsons Landing. Currently there is no shuttle transportation available for guests between these sites. A ferry run by the Catalina Island Company is available seasonally for transportation between Avalon and Two Harbors. Taxi service is also available.

References

External links

*
The Catalina Island Conservancy

The Santa Catalina Island Company

Two Harbors

Catalina Express

{{authority control Santa Catalina Island (California) Unincorporated communities in Los Angeles County, California Campgrounds in California Populated coastal places in California Unincorporated communities in California