Also El Pas Grande Del Sur Del Grande Pas El • Sur Big Bohemian : Ship’s Log, November 13, 1542 13, November Log, Ship’s Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, Rodriguez Juan and the sea beats on them.” them.” on beats sea the and Historical Advisory Commission (831) 755-4913 (831) Commission Advisory Historical For more information call the Monterey County Monterey the call information more For INSIDE! which seem to reach the heavens, heavens, the reach to seem which MAP Monterey Public Library’s California History Room. History California Library’s Public Monterey DETAILED California Views Collection, Monterey County Library and Library County Monterey Collection, Views California very bold...there are mountains mountains are bold...there very Photos and postcards courtesy of Pat Hathaway, the Hathaway, Pat of courtesy postcards and Photos “All the coast passed this day is is day this passed coast the “All Monterey County Historical Advisory Commission Advisory Historical County Monterey This brochure was prepared by the by prepared was brochure This Historical Advisory Commission Advisory Historical © 2007 by The Monterey County Monterey The by 2007 © scenic highway in 1966. in highway scenic by Elizabeth Barratt Elizabeth by Highway 1 opened in 1937 and was designated a a designated was and 1937 in opened 1 Highway Monterey physician. Seventeen years in building, building, in years Seventeen physician. Monterey Along Highway One Highway Along idea formulated in the 1890s by Dr. John D. Roberts, a a Roberts, D. John Dr. by 1890s the in formulated idea A Historic Drive Historic A Today’s Riviera-like drive along Highway 1 began with an an with began 1 Highway along drive Riviera-like Today’s Old Coast Road. Road. Coast Old detour on the area’s earliest route, route, earliest area’s the on detour coast will see historic sites and take a a take and sites historic see will Sur visitor the vistas, mountain and Park. Along with oceanscapes oceanscapes with Along Park. to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State State Burns Pfeiffer Julia to 1 from the Carmel River south south River Carmel the from 1 Sur Coast, following Highway Highway following Coast, Sur One and central portions of the Big Big the of portions central and This 37-mile drive covers the north north the covers drive 37-mile This Along Highway Along Drive Big whim. at excludes and invites which fog Historic causes majestic landscapes to appear and vanish in a teasing sea sea teasing a in vanish and appear to landscapes majestic causes A disappear into the brooding sea. The region’s ethereal climate climate ethereal region’s The sea. brooding the into disappear places, mountains seem to plunge from 3,300 feet heights to to heights feet 3,300 from plunge to seem mountains places, the road reveals magnificent natural expanses where, in in where, expanses natural magnificent reveals road the edge of Big Sur’s rugged coast. On this trip, each curve in in curve each trip, this On coast. rugged Sur’s Big of edge Highway 1 traces a narrow, cliff-hugging route along the the along route cliff-hugging narrow, a traces 1 Highway world ’s great scenic drives, scenic great ’s world THE BIG SUR COAST • BY ELIZABETH BARRATT ELIZABETH BY • COAST SUR BIG THE Sur Big The the of one Considered bohemian “El País Grande del Sur” BiG Sur Big Sur: The Big Country To The South “Harry Dick Ross, what can one say of Big Sur’s original and first great Bohemian, inheritor of Jack London’s original first generation...He tramped the hills to our coast before the road came through and here he is.” About 3,000 years before the first outside settlers “All day the road wound along a rocky shore, beside a discovered this pristine region, a portion of the Lyon Phelps, in “Recipes for Living in Big Sur” Big Sur coastal area was inhabited by native Indian bright sea...at long intervals, stark-looking ranch houses tribes. Groups lived in small settlements stretching down the coast from Carmel to Lucia, and in appeared, but there was little travel on the road, and the small camps into the Santa Lucia mountains. The Rumsen occupied the area from Carmel through human voice was still a rarity to the ear.” Palo Colorado and into the Little Sur; from there, the Esselen occupied the region heading south J. Smeaton Chase, “California Coast Trails,” 1913 toward Lucia. The semi-nomadic natives lived in huts made from tule and subsisted on a diet of wild animals, fish, During the World War II era, when gasoline rationing slowed By the 1950s a younger group of Bohemian and acorns. After Spanish soldiers, clerics and civilians arrived their own crops and livestock for subsistence, and looked forward highway traffic and tourism to a trickle in Big Sur, land artists and writers arrived, calling in the Monterey and Carmel areas in 1770-71, the natives came to the twice-yearly supply runs brought in by coast steamers for values also depreciated. The area’s modest rents and quiet themselves Beatniks. Their lifestyle was under the control of the mission system. From that time, they their “extras.” surroundings drew artists and writers to settle in the wild, exemplified by “On the Road” author were either assimilated, or they succumbed to diseases introduced still-isolated land. Among them was wood sculptor, Harry Dick Jack Kerouac, who lived in a cabin by the newcomers. By the late 1850s, when the first white settlers During those earliest years, only a horse trail led down to the Ross, who along with his first wife, poet-writer Lillian Bos in the Big Sur woods where he could began arriving in Big Sur, the native population had vanished remote Big Sur coast. By 1855 a wagon trail connected Monterey Ross, lived at Partington Ridge. The pair had first walked to “write and be alone and undisturbed from the scene. to Rancho El Sur. It was another 31 years before the route was Big Sur from San Simeon in 1924 before returning to build a for six weeks.” In the 1960s and 1970s, extended from Bixby Canyon into the Big Sur hand-hewn house in the 1940s. They became good friends with Big Sur experienced an influx of youthful Big Sur’s pioneer era began during California’s Mexican Period Valley as far as the Post Ranch. A portion of their next-door neighbor, novelist and artist, Henry Miller, hippies who sought alternative lifestyles, living (1821-1846) with the granting of the 8,949-acre Rancho El Sur, this original route is still covered by the author of “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch,” under the redwoods and in isolated cabins. which stretched from the mouth of the Little Sur River to Cooper Old Coast Road, a sidetrip on this map and the once-banned “The Tropic of Cancer.” Miller had been Point. First acquired by Juan Bautista Alvarado in 1834, in 1840 itinerary. introduced to the area by collage artist Jean Varda. Painter Emil Over the years since the building of Highway 1, other notable the land passed to Captain John Rogers Cooper. Another Mexican White, who became Miller’s secretary and companion, later individuals have called the Big Sur coast home, including grant, under a variety of owners, was the 8,876-acre San Jose y Big Sur’s pioneer era came to a close in inaugurated the Henry Miller Library, to house Miller’s, and photographer Ansel Adams, architect Nathaniel Owings and Sur Chiquito (1835), which led south from the Carmel River to 1937, with the opening of Highway 1. In other Big Sur writer’s and artists’ works. Both Carmel poet his wife, environmentalist Margaret Owings, and Nobel Prize Palo Colorado Canyon. short order, the new coast road brought Robinson Jeffers, and writer George Sterling, had been drawn winning scientist, Linus Pauling. not only tourists but the industries which serve to the Big Sur coast during the early part of the 20th Century; The earliest permanent homesteaders in Big Sur arrived in the them: gasoline stations, resorts, cafes, shops and galleries. Jeffers would later use a deserted farm house at San Jose Creek Escalating property values in recent decades have brought another early 1860s, after the passage of the Homestead Act, a decade as his inspiration for the setting of “The Roan Stallion.” wave of Big Sur artists: the rich and famous from the world of film, after California became a state. Many of the early settlers’ names Still largely rural in character, Big Sur’s aura of beauty and Jaime de Angulo, a physician, linguist and anthropologist, music and television. Like the generations of eclectic individuals have been preserved in the area’s parks and geographical features, remoteness has made it a cultural draw for artists, writers lived at Big Sur, as did the English nature poet, Eric Barker and who preceded them, these modern artists have also sought solitude including Pfeiffer, Bixby, Post, Trotter, Dani, Notley, Partington and artisans who have sought inspiration in the area’s unique painter Ephraim Doner. and inspiration in Big Sur’s unique and idyllic setting. and Harlan. Without a road, these families had to depend upon ambiance of solitude and timeless beauty. Also El Pas Grande Del Sur Del Grande Pas El • Sur Big Bohemian : Ship’s Log, November 13, 1542 13, November Log, Ship’s Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, Rodriguez Juan and the sea beats on them.” them.” on beats sea the and Historical Advisory Commission (831) 755-4913 (831) Commission Advisory Historical For more information call the Monterey County Monterey the call information more For INSIDE! which seem to reach the heavens, heavens, the reach to seem which MAP Monterey Public Library’s California History Room.