More than a century on the Big Sur coast
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A month before it burned, I turned seventy at the cabin and took my grandchildren up Plaskett Ridge to a swing that hangs out over the ocean. That swing is now 875 feet inside the fire. The cabin is 820 feet outside it.
From Mabel’s pen
An elegy for her sister Olive, who died too young — the shadowed redwood canyon of their childhood, 'home to you and me.'
Family spotlight
Margaret Voss Schmidt Krenkel (1876-c.1960), known as "Mother Krenkel," was a beloved figure of the Big Sur coast who lived in the Los Burros Mining District for over half a century. EARLY LIFE: Born in San Francisco "among the sand dunes near the Barbary Coast" to German immigrant parents. Her fat…
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One gnarled survivor of Marion Plaskett's orchard fed the whole coast apples of impossible size.
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Sarah's brother Albert Barnes proved up a quarter-section on Pepperwood Ridge and set it to fruit trees.
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Marno Dutton remembered Cruikshank apples so big a child could eat only half of one.
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Born in Anderson Valley in 1856, Mendocina Plaskett was the first white child born in Mendocino County.
gold mines
The most told Plaskett story of all: the Nevada silver tunnel sold twelve feet short of the Comstock Lode.
gold mines
The Kings River mine paid handsomely — and financed the venture that lost it all.
234 stories · 1762 family members & friends · 678 places — and the home page changes every few days. Come back soon.
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