In this episode of California’s Gold, Huell learns about a little-known but reliable communication service that briefly existed on Catalina Island in the late 1800s; after that, it’s a bit of Second World War history — in an episode he refers to as “Historic things that glide through the sky.”

Huell soars above our state as we look at the Pigeon Courier Service at Avalon on Catalina Island, once the most expeditious means of communication with the small island. Next, Huell visits the Twenty-Nine Palms Air Academy, created during World War II. Huell goes up in the air with some of the original pilots at this, the largest glider school in the country.

(Click on the linked image below to see the video.)