Big Sur, California
A History of Big Sur - Wikipedia
Big Sur and Native Americans
Three tribes of Native Americans—the Ohlone, Esselen, and Salinan—were apparently the first people to inhabit the area now known as Big Sur. Archaeological evidence shows that they lived in Big Sur for thousands of years, leading a nomadic, hunter-gatherer existence.
Few traces of their material culture have survived. Their arrow heads were made of obsidian and flint, which indicates trading links with tribes hundreds of miles away, since the nearest sources of these rocks are in the Sierra Nevada mountains and the northern California Coast Ranges.
They followed local food sources seasonally, living near the coast in winter to harvest rich stocks of mussels, abalone and other sea life, and moving inland at other times to harvest oak acorns. Bedrock mortars, which are large exposed rocks that these people hollowed out into bowl shapes to grind the acorns into flour, can be found throughout Big Sur. The tribes also used controlled burning techniques to increase tree growth and food production.
Spanish exploration and settlement
The first Europeans to see Big Sur were Spanish mariners led by Juan Cabrillo in 1542, who sailed up the coast without landing. Two centuries passed before the Spanish attempted to colonize the area. In 1769, an expedition led by Gaspar de Portolà were the first Europeans known to set foot in Big Sur, in the far south near San Carpoforo Canyon.[4] Daunted by the sheer cliffs, his party avoided the area and pressed far inland.
Portolà landed in Monterey Bay in 1770, and with Father Junípero Serra, who helped found most of the missions in California, established the town Monterey, which became the capital of the Spanish colony Alta California. The Spanish gave Big Sur its name during this period, calling the region el país grande del sur (the Big Country of the South) which was often shortened to el sur grande, because it was a vast, unexplored, and impenetrable land south of their capital at Monterey.
The Spanish colonization devastated the Native American population. Most tribe members died out from European diseases or forced labor and malnutrition at the missions in the eighteenth century, while many remaining members assimilated with Spanish and Mexican ranchers in the nineteenth century.
Ranchos and homesteads
Along with the rest of California, Big Sur became part of Mexico when it gained independence from Spain in 1821. In 1834, the Mexican governor José Figueroa granted a 9000 acre (36 km²) rancho in northern Big Sur to Juan Bautista Alvarado, and his uncle by marriage, Captain J.B.R Cooper, soon after assumed ownership. The oldest surviving structure in Big Sur, the so-called Cooper Cabin, was built in 1861 on the Cooper ranch.
In 1848, as a result of the Mexican-American War, Mexico ceded California to the United States. After passage of the federal Homestead Act in 1862, a few hardy pioneers moved into Big Sur, drawn by the promise of free 160 acre (0.6 km²) parcels. Many local sites are named after the settlers from this period: Gamboa, Pfeiffer, Post, Partington, Ross and McWay are common place names. Consistent with the Anglo-Hispanic heritage of the area, the new settlers mixed English and Spanish and began to call their new home "Big Sur."
Industrial era and gold rush
From the 1860s through the turn of the twentieth century, lumbering cut down most of the coast redwoods. Along with industries based on tanoak bark harvesting, gold mining, and limestone processing, the local economy provided more jobs and supported a larger population than today. In the 1880s, a gold rush boom town, Manchester, sprang up at Alder Creek in the far south. The town boasted a population of 200, four stores, a restaurant, five saloons, a dance hall, and a hotel, but it was abandoned soon after the turn of the century and burned to the ground in 1909. There were no reliable roads to supply these industries, so local entrepreneurs built small boat landings at a few coves along the coast, such as Bixby Landing pictured here. None of these landings remain today, and few other signs of this brief industrial period are visible to the casual traveler. The rugged, isolated terrain kept out all but the sturdiest and most self-sufficient settlers. A 30 mile (50 km) trip to Monterey could take three days by wagon, over a rough and dangerous track.
Before and after Highway 1
After the industrial boom faded, the early decades of the twentieth century passed with few changes, and Big Sur remained a nearly inaccessible wilderness. As late as the 1920s, only two homes in the entire region had electricity, locally generated by water wheels and windmills. Most of the population lived without power until connections to the California electric grid were established in the early 1950s. Big Sur changed rapidly when Highway 1 was completed in 1937 after eighteen years of construction, aided by New Deal funds and the use of convict labor. Highway 1 dramatically altered the local economy and brought the outside world much closer, with ranches and farms quickly giving way to tourist venues and second homes. Even with these modernizations, Big Sur was spared the worst excesses of development, due largely to residents who fought to preserve the land. The Monterey County government won a landmark court case in 1962, affirming its right to ban billboards and other visual distractions on Highway 1.The county then adopted one of the country's most stringent land use plans, prohibiting any new construction within sight of the highway.