Law practice

In July 1892, Catlin was admitted to the bar of San Francisco and established a law practice in Sacramento until 1899. He worked at different law firms, including for a short time in Alaska in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush. By 1906, he became a senior member of the firm of Catlin & Catlin at 628 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, with his brother Hairy C. Catlin.^[4][2]

Catlin became the first president of the Mountain Play Association and financed its first play in the Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre in Marin County, California in 1913. He knew American writer and actor Perry Newberry in San Francisco in 1915, when they were on the board of the Children's Theater. Catlin's daughter, Lucy R. Catlin (1895-1949) was the theater's secretary.^[1][5]

Move to Carmel-by-the-Sea

At age 56, Catlin retired as a lawyer in 1922, and moved to Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. He was an expert horseman, and to earn extra money he worked as the riding master at the Carmel School of Riding and Saddle Livery on Ocean Avenue and Junipero Street.^[3]

Once an attorney with a temperament clanging at words and bending juries to his will; now artistic smithy with a forge clanging on iron and bending beautiful curves in red hot metal. Picturesque this Forge In The Forest, the man and his work. John Catlin is founder of the famous Mountain Theater on Mt. Tamalpais

— Carmel Pine Cone^[6]

In 1925, Catlin assisted Herbert Heron at the Forest Theater. Catlin, Una Jeffers, and others created sets for the Forest Theater's production of Hamlet in 1926.^[7]

Forge in the Forest

Catlin built the original Forge in the Forest home at 6th Avenue and Junipero Street with a small blacksmith shop in the garage in 1926. He became a blacksmith at the forge, which he called Forge in the Forest. Catlin made his wrought iron designs at the forge. Catlin was friends with artist and blacksmith Francis Whitaker that operated the Forge from 1940 to 1963.^[7][3][8] Artist Paul Whitman was friends with Whitaker and did a watercolor of him at the forge in his Carmel workshop in 1935.^[9]

The Forge was moved to its present location on the corner of 5th Avenue and Junipero Street, when builder Hugh W. Comstock remodeled the Forge in 1940 at a cost of $1,200 (equivalent to $26,098 in 2023). Whitaker made the wrought hardware for many of the historic buildings in Carmel. He also served on the Carmel City Council for 13 years. When Whitaker left Carmel in the mid-1960s, the Forge became an artist's studio.^[8]

The Forge was converted to a restaurant and saloon in the fall of 1970, called Forge in the Forest. Photographs of Whitaker and the original Forge building are on display inside the current Forge restaurant.^[9]

Blacksmith mayor of Carmel

Catlin was a candidate for city councilman in 1928 and 1930.^[2] He became mayor of Carmel from 1932-1934 and succeeded poet mayor Herbert Heron.^[10][11]

His election as mayor was during the Great Depression and the Prohibition. Catlin was successful to overturn a law enforced by the Carmel Development Company that profited alcohol consumption for property owners.^[5] He served on Carmel's city council in 1934.^{[1][12][7][13]}