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Wrigley always appreciated DM’s “newsy” letters.  He found the details of operations engaged his interest in Catalina and kept him right up to date with everything that DM had his finger on.  At first, all they exchanged were letters, until a wireless phone service was put in that allowed them to have weekly phone calls, which themselves were like “a breath of Catalina.”  But the good details came in the letters and although the phone and telegraph services took the place of letters for business decisions, DM and Wrigley continued a rich correspondence about the daily operations of their “Magic Isle.”  In 1930, after working together for a decade, Wrigley remarked to DM, “The great advantage of the letters you write is that you write them just as you talk and when a letter from you is read aloud you can almost hear you say the words.”  Wrigley, from his chair on the 19th floor of the Wrigley Building in Chicago, appreciated the range of activities, from morning ’til night, construction, finances, entertainment, manufacturing, politiking and everything else that happened in a small town with a big name.

Here is a taste.

[ ] WM WRIGLEY, JR.

July 28, 1931

400 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill.

Dear Mr. Wrigley:

…

The weather in California recently, has been the same as in the east. As a matter of fact, it has been the warmest July in a good many years. The other day I went over the United States weather sheet that is kept in Avalon and found that we run about 12º cooler than other places on the mainland. Anyone living in Avalon should be thankful that they are here and not some place where the heat is so much worse.

This last Saturday evening was an eventful evening. I happened to be down at the Ampitheatre for the Mexican Band Concert and as I was leaving in my car, I saw a woman drop from one of the windows above the Crescent Office to the pavement. She fell on her head and fractured her skull. She was bleeding from her mouth and ears when they picked her up. She fell about fourteen feet and it was a miracle that she was not killed outright. The doctor expects her to pull through.

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