Construction was begun on the Hotel St. Catherine in 1917 to replace Avalon's Metropole, destroyed by a catastrophic fire in 1915. By 1918 it was open for business, but when the island was bought by William Wrigley, Jr., in 1919, a series of upgrades were made to the hotel, ending in the early 1920s. According to the back, this postcard was hand-colored.