October 24th, 2011
The Bluebird Inn, located on Main Street in Cambria’s East Village, was built by George W. Lull in 1880 for his second wife, Mary Inman Lull.
Lull was a partner in the San Francisco firm of Grant and Lull. While George Grant remained in San Francisco, Lull first came to the Cambria area in 1858 at the age of 27. He built a small store near the mouth of San Simeon Creek. In 1865 he leased a small plot of land from Philip Kaitzel and erected a two-story building which later became the Music House and today is part of Fog’s End Bed and Breakfast. In the lower floor of this building Lull established the first store in the Cambria area called the Grant and Lull Store. By 1867 the store had been moved to the southeast corner of Bridge and Main Street and the first Cambria Post Office was established within it. Winfield S. Whitaker was the first postmaster but Lull was postmaster from 1872 to 1881. Read the rest of this entry »
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August 24th, 2011
The towering pine trees among which we live in Cambria are, and always have been, very important to the existence and the character of our little village. Evidence of their significance abounds in the names of hotels, restaurants and real estate agencies and, in the past, developers have called the town Cambria Pines or Cambria Pines by the Sea. Read the rest of this entry »
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June 9th, 2011
Joaquin Modesto Soto, better known as “Jack” was born in Adelaida in 1886. His father, Yrculano Soto, was born in Monterey and later settled near Adelaida where he raised cattle and goats butchering them right there on the ranch. Jack’s mother was Delores Grijalva. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 29th, 2011
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States was suddenly plunged into a war for which it was poorly prepared. Before the month was over, 11 merchant marine ships were attacked off the Pacific coast including one, the Montebello, which was sunk off the coast of Cambria. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in World War II | 4 Comments »
May 29th, 2011
I graduated from High School in Longview, Washington, in 1940 and the following year hostilities broke out. I was engaged to Doreen Kisch, who I had known since we were small kids, and the draft board was breathing down my neck. I wanted no part of the Army so, in 1942, I enlisted in the Coast Guard at Portland, Oregon, about 50 miles away. After basic training at Alameda, California, I was assigned to the beach patrol at Cambria. The Coast Guard first arrived in Cambria in December 1942, and I spent my first Christmas in the military there at the age of 20. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 23rd, 2011
World War II must have had a profound effect on Piedras Blancas Light Station. Not only was it a Coast Guard facility but its geographic location on an isolated point on the central coast of California made it especially vulnerable to enemy attack. However, little information about the war time effort at the Station has been uncovered. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 3rd, 2011
World War II brought rationing to the American public including members of the U.S. Coast Guard serving at Piedras Blancas and all other light stations. Ration books were obtained from the local O.P.A. Board [Office of Price Administration] by one person who collected them for all the personnel at one time. An entry in the Piedras Blancas Log dated Tuesday March 2, 1943, stated “To O.P.A. Board about food rationing for C.G. personnel” indicating that someone had to physically go to the O.P.A. office to obtain the ration books. Read the rest of this entry »
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March 19th, 2011
As soon as he acquired the Rancho Santa Rosa from Don Julian Estrada, Domingo Pujol divided the rancho into smaller parcels and he sold them to many of the first settlers in the Cambria area. One of Pujol’s first customers was George E. Long who purchased three parcels from Pujol totaling 2094.6 acres on October 12, 1866. One of these parcels was 1010 acres and included virtually all of what would become Cambria. About three months later, on January 14, 1867, Long sold two of the three parcels, including the 1010 acre plot, to Samuel Pollard for $1250. Read the rest of this entry »
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March 6th, 2011
The distribution of the Mexican Land Grants in the early 1840s gave rise to the coast road from San Luis Obispo north, more or less along its current path, to San Carpoforo Creek. It went wherever necessary to connect the residences of the rancho owners. To call it a road is a bit of an exaggeration. In actual fact, it was more of a trail suitable for people on horseback, pack animals and cattle. Carretas (two-wheeled carts drawn by oxen) were mainly used on the rancho where they were first made but could be taken along the road. The continuous passage, especially of cattle, eventually widened the trail until it was passable by wagons. Read the rest of this entry »
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February 21st, 2011
Lester Gibson, a state highway engineer, led a pack train through the Big Sur area in 1918 to make the first survey for the location of the Coast Highway. Actual construction of the road began in 1921 when a contract was awarded to the firm of Blake and Heaney to build the portion of Highway One between Piedras Blancas Light Station and Salmon Creek. They completed the project in December of 1924. Read the rest of this entry »
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February 19th, 2011
Initially, Piedras Blancas Light Station employed a head keeper (also called a principal keeper or simply a keeper) as well as a first and second assistant. Following the installation of the fog signal in 1906, a third assistant joined the complement. Read the rest of this entry »
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February 14th, 2011
by Taylor Coffman
Geneva Hamilton’s Where the Highway Ends was first produced in Cambria in 1974, a local effort by the short-lived Williams Printing Company. The book had no explanatory subtitle. It was simply called Where the Highway Ends. However, the front panel of the white dust jacket contained these further words, displayed above an illustration by the Cambria artist Tom Rawlings: “An interesting and colorful history of the Ranchos that include San Simeon, Cambria and Harmony.” Read the rest of this entry »
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February 3rd, 2011
During the construction of Highway One 32 bridges were built between Carmel and San Simeon, all designed and constructed under the direction of F. W. Panhorst, Bridge Engineer for the State of California. The first bridge to be completed was a small timber structure across Salmon Creek about 19 miles north of San Simeon which was opened in 1928. Read the rest of this entry »
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January 31st, 2011
When you think of trees in Cambria, what comes to mind? Cambria pines? Sure, we have lots of them around. But, what are those other trees you see when you walk around East Village? Well, let’s take a little tour and see. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Flora and Fauna | 2 Comments »
January 30th, 2011
This tome, compiled by Annie L. Morrison and John H. Haydon, was originally entitled History of San Luis Obispo County and Environs and was published by the Historic Record Company of Los Angeles in 1917. It consisted of a 182 page History of San Luis Obispo County written by Morrison, a short, 22 page History of Santa Maria Valley by Haydon and several hundred brief biographies of important people who were living or had lived in San Luis Obispo County. Read the rest of this entry »
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January 30th, 2011
Winfield Scott Whitaker, son of John M. Whitaker, was born in Indiana on February 18, 1832. His father, who was born on February 11, 1801, was a member of the Legislature of Iowa for twenty years off and on, and had the honor of selecting the State University lands. He married Mrs. Jane Phillips, a native of Ohio, and daughter of William Phillips. They had six children, five sons and one daughter. Read the rest of this entry »
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December 24th, 2010
Act of Possession – A ceremony performed after approval of a Mexican land grant in which the new owner and Mexican government officials participated. It occurred on the actual grant property in front of witnesses following the survey by the local alcalde. A brief description of the Acts of Possession for the Rancho Piedra Blanca can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »
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December 24th, 2010
In 1821, Mexico declared its independence from Spain and, in 1834, Mexico’s Secularization Laws were ratified under the governorship of Jose Figueroa. The Mexican government then began transferring the mission lands to private individuals through the Mexican Land Grant system. Jose Ramon Estrada applied to governor Juan Alvarado for a grant of the Rancho San Simeon and his application was approved on December 1, 1842. Read the rest of this entry »
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December 14th, 2010
On January 18, 1840, the Mexican governor of Alta California, Juan B. Alvarado, granted about 49,000 acres of the Rancho Piedra Blanca to Don Jose de Jesus Pico. The Rancho Piedra Blanca was described in the original grant to Pico as “…bounded by the arroya named ‘del Pinalito’ by that known by the name of ‘San Carpogaro’ by the sea and by the big mountain…” The arroyo del “Pinal” or “Padre Juan” lies about a mile south of the south fork of Pico Creek. The alcalde, Jose Mariano Bonilla, caused juridical measurement of the tract to be made on September 25, 1842. Read the rest of this entry »
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December 14th, 2010
John Downes Wilson, better known as Captain John Wilson, was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1798. By the time he was 30 he was master of the Thomas Nowlan, a ship trading in hides and tallow on the California coast. From 1828 to 1843 he was captain of several ships in this trade including the Ayacucho, a ship described in some detail by Richard Henry Dana in his book Two Years Before the Mast. After his sailing days he became a land holder and cattle rancher, ultimately becoming one of the biggest land holders in California. Although he was born a protestant, he converted to Catholicism in order to conform to Mexican law which restricted land ownership to Catholics. To this end he was sometimes known as Juan Wilson or even Juan Huilsons. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Missions and Ranchos, People | 4 Comments »