Pigeon Post of Catalina Island
From 1894 to 1898 pigeons carried mail from Avalon across the Santa Barbara Channel to Los Angeles. Two pigeon fanciers, brothers Otto J. and O. F. Zahn, reached an agreement with Western Union where it would not build a telegraph line to the isolated island so long as the pigeons did not compete with it on the mainland. Fifty birds were trained, carrying three copies of each message because of the danger of hunters and predators. They made the 48-mile passage in about one hour, bringing letters, news clippings from the Los Angeles Times, and emergency summons for doctors. In three seasons of operation only two letters failed to come through, but at $.50 to $1.00 per message the service was not profitable, and in 1898 the Zahn brothers ended the post.
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“They wait, each like a wooden decoy
or soft like a pigeon or
a sweet snug duck:
until one moves, moves that dart-beak
breaking over.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,
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Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“Beyond this island bound
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—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)