Captain Joseph Clark and the San Simeon Whaling Station
Captain Joseph Clark's whaling station made San Simeon a town of 200 before the Hearsts ever came.
In 1859 San Simeon was an established whaling station with a population of 200 by 1869. It was founded by a Portuguese whaling captain named Joseph Clark. The whales which summer in the Bering Sea migrate in early winter to the warm waters of lower California where they calve. In the spring they go back north, traveling so close to shore one may watch them as they come up to blow - the high spout followed by small ones as the baby whales follow their mothers.
Where this story happened