The Plaskett Family

More than a century on the Big Sur coast

Places

Los Burros

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Stories set here

place history

The Schoolteacher Brides of Pacific Valley

The county kept sending young women to teach the coast's children — and the Plaskett boys kept marrying them. How two brothers married two sisters, and the schoolhouse became the town.

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History of Coast Schools Concluded

Part two: Pacific Valley School — kept since 1880 on the east side of the highway at Plaskett Creek — and the teachers who came to the edge of the world.

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Mother Krenkel- A Coast Legend

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.

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Pacific Valley Gold Claims Still Producing

A dozen mining claims on Plaskett Ridge — including the arrastra her husband's grandfather built — and the gold still waiting in the family's hills.

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Plasketts Among Early Coast Settlers

How the valley was settled: William Lucas Plaskett's family clearing lilac 'grown to the dimension of small trees' — her classic account of the family's beginning.

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Tale of the Evans Family

From a green valley in Wales to the Big Sur coast — the Evans family's voyage on a side-wheeler with their cattle penned above the paddle wheel.

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Willey Cruikshank - Mining Was His Life

The boy who watched Chinese miners pan Salmon Creek struck the Last Chance mine — and vanished into the Lucias in 1937. His life, told by a woman who knew him.

gold mines

The Arrastra on Plaskett Creek

Built by William Lucas Plaskett about 1885 and turned by a water wheel on the creek, the family arrastra ground the Western Star's gold ore — and its timbers, iron and basin are still there.

The people of Los Burros

Everyone the family archive records in the story of this place. Descendants: if one of these is yours, we’d love to hear from you.