Toyon Bay is located on
Catalina Island off the coast of
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. Originally inhabited by a group of natives called Pipi Mari (or Pimugnans), and the Torqua, after whom a nearby spring is named. During the ownership of the island by William Banning, the site was known as Banning's Beach since it was used by the family for picnics. There was later a camp called Camp Banning for reform school boys and girls operated by the Whittier State School from 1902 until 1912.
It then became the site of the Catalina Island School for Boys, a prestigious boarding school which officially opened on September 21, 1928 with an enrollment of 14 boys; some of the boarding school's buildings still exist.
The school was founded by educator Kieth Vosburg.
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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, the boys were evacuated and the facility was turned into an
Office of Strategic Services training camp. Chinese and American men were trained in
guerrilla warfare for use behind Japanese lines in
China. The Office of Strategic Services was the precursor to the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
.
After the war, it saw time as a boarding school, a singing camp, resort in the 1950s and was later abandoned.
In 1979, it was purchased by Guided Discoveries, Inc. and has since been run as the
Catalina Island Marine Institute The Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI) is a non-profit educational program founded in 1979 and run by Guided Discoveries on Santa Catalina Island, California.
It is the host to approximately 15,000 students a year, who visit it in school-orga ...
, a marine science facility for school children and summer campers.
References
{{Reflist
External links
*CIA, Catalina Island Marine Institute.
*http://www.guideddiscoveries.org
*https://web.archive.org/web/20080411043137/http://www.aliso12.org/cimi.htm
Landforms of the Channel Islands of California
Bodies of water of Los Angeles County, California
Bays of California