Catalina Island is a popular tourist destination that receives more than a million visitors each year. But the trajectory of the island and its only incorporated town, Avalon, was dramatically changed 109 years ago by a devastating fire, the subject of a still enduring mystery, and possibly a dark secret.
The “Great Sedition Trial” uncovered shocking connections at the time with the German reich that we were fighting, and challenged the idea that the nation was of a single mind during the war. It also challenged exactly how far the national commitment to freedom of speech and opinion reached, especially in extraordinary times.