More than a century on the Big Sur coast
mabel article
Her earliest known piece, under the pen name Belinda Brown - eighteen years before Coast Trails. How Cox's Hole became Pacific Valley, who named it, and the July the family left Fresno because San Joaquin was getting “too thickly settled”.
From Mabel’s pen
Luther Burbank's cuttings came down the coast in 1898 with Linwood Mitchell — and the mountain orchards still bear the evidence.
Family spotlight
Wealthy rum and sugar trader in Santa Cruz (St. Croix), Virgin Islands. Held the rank of Major in the Island Militia. Owned a plantation worked by enslaved Africans. When emancipation came, he "lost everything and died of a broken heart." Multiple Plaskett nephews came from England to join his Cari…
mabel article
'Mill Creek is my favorite, filled with memories of my childhood' — Mabel returns to her father's sawmill country. Companion to our Return to Mill Creek photo story.
mabel article
Before 1890 the mail came by horseback from Jolon. Seventy years of coast mail carriers — including the Plaskett boys swimming icy rivers with the pack mule.
mabel article
From Indian shell beds to a 4,000-acre cattle empire — the Mansfields, who came to Pacific Valley when the lilac grew as tall as trees.
mabel article
City-bred Margaret Krenkel rode a mule to her own wedding at Los Burros and dug her well by hand — the real-life 'Hannah' of the coast.
mabel article
Up the Nacimiento from the old McKern place, the homesteaders of the 1890s picked the prettiest valley in the Lucias.
mabel article
George Ames rode down from Santa Cruz at fourteen to work for Jim Prewitt — and rode straight into coast legend.
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