The Marvelous Shut-In Valley (San Francisco Call, 1897)
The earliest published account of Pacific Valley — a full-page 1897 San Francisco Call feature on 'the Marvelous Shut-In Valley,' the unexplored pocket of the Coast Range that William Lucas Plaskett found, settled, and never left.
This is the earliest known published account of Pacific Valley — a full-page illustrated feature from The San Francisco Call of Sunday, June 20, 1897, which called the place “the Marvelous Shut-In Valley.” The reporter refers to the founder throughout as “John Plaskett”; this is a period error — the man who found and settled the valley was William Lucas Plaskett, and every detail here (the search for gold, the return about 1867, the wife brought over the trail, the colony that grew from them) is his story. The 1897 text is in the public domain and is transcribed below in full from the original scan.
The Marvelous Shut-In Valley
An Unexplored Pocket of the Coast Range
The San Francisco Call, Sunday, June 20, 1897
Down in the southwestern corner of Monterey County is one of the hitherto unnoticed marvels of the world. It is an inhabited valley, cut off from the rest of creation. The western end of it is open to the Pacific Ocean, but the other three sides are rugged walls of the Coast Range that rise several thousand feet above sea level. The roughness of the sea at the mouth of the valley makes the landing of vessels an impossibility, and the only other way in or out is a single, almost impassable trail that leads over the highest point of the mountains on the east. In the winter season even this communication is cut off by swollen streams. Truly this valley is the most inaccessible in all California, and certainly one of the most inaccessible spots on earth.
The valley itself is strange enough, but still stranger is the fact that people live there. They live in every sense of the word and are happy and contented, although children grow to be men and women without seeing a stage-coach or a railroad train, and having no knowledge of the world except what they get from books or the words of their elders.
This strange place is known as “Shut-In” Valley to the very few people who know of its existence. It is about forty-five miles from a railroad, but the journey is so rough that it consumes all of two days in good weather. The nearest postoffice is Gorda, which is on the outside of the valley and in the level part of the country. It is after you leave Gorda, on the way to Shut-In Valley, that the roughness of the journey begins.
To tell the story of Shut-In Valley it will be necessary to begin at the beginning. To be sure this will only make it seem stranger, but it will also make it more romantic. The beginning of the history is away back in the fifties, when John Plaskett [sic — the Call mistakenly gives his name as John; this is William Lucas Plaskett, the valley’s founder] went into the valley to search for gold. Plaskett, who was then about thirty years of age, had been prospecting in the Coast Range, and at several points ran into the outer wall of Shut-In Valley. He struck it on the north, east and south, and at once came to the conclusion that there was something interesting on the other side. It was a difficult job getting in, but he succeeded after several weeks’ work, and was then disappointed at finding no gold.
Plaskett remained in the valley for some time and went over it from end to end. He ascertained that it had an ideal climate, was well watered, that the soil was fertile, and that game of all kinds was plentiful. Just the place for a ranch, he thought.
But Plaskett was not hunting ranches at that time. He wanted gold, and accordingly left Shut-In Valley for more profitable diggings. But as the years rolled by, and he had married and met with business reverses, and found that all the good diggings had “petered out,” his mind occasionally turned to the quiet spot in the mountains that he had found on one of his prospecting trips. Just the place for a ranch, he thought again, and then wondered if it was still open to settlement. The only way to find out was to go and see.
This was about 1867, and Plaskett was getting to that time of his life when he began to feel that a nice quiet place to rest would be pretty good. The more he thought of his valley in the mountains the more he wanted to live there, and soon made up his mind that it was the only place to live.
Leaving his wife and household goods in Monterey, Plaskett started out alone to find the valley in the mountains, and to get some idea of its latitude and longitude. This consumed several weeks, but he found the valley exactly as he had left it ten years before, and the chances are that nobody had entered it during his absence. It looked to him more beautiful than it did on his first visit.
Plaskett found a trail that he could move his household goods over, and then returned to Monterey for his wife. With the assistance of a couple of sheepherders they moved into the valley with a good stock of provisions, a cow, chickens, farm utensils, seeds, etc., and from the day they reached the spot it was two years before either of them went back to civilization. Nor did they have a single visitor in all that time.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Plaskett were charmed with their home, but, naturally enough, found it a little lonely. So when they went to Monterey they induced a young married couple to go back with them, and so started the colony that to-day numbers over thirty-five people — people whose lives go on as smoothly and as primitively as life did half a century ago. One-half of those living in the valley were born there, and there is one girl over 20 years of age who has never been out of the place.
John Plaskett [i.e. William Lucas Plaskett] and his wife are still the oldest people in Shut-In Valley. Both are over 80 years of age, but full of life, and bid fair to live in the valley in the mountains for another quarter of a century.
A short time ago Dorse Plaskett, a niece of the old couple, visited San Francisco for the first time. She is 17 years old, and it was her first visit to the world. She had never seen any conveyance except the rude sleds and wagons used in the valley, and the sight of a railroad train and the crowd of people filled her with awe and wonder. She had seen many pictures of locomotives and been told about them, but somehow the real thing was different from her conception. That there should be so much noise connected with it was something that had never occurred to her.
According to Miss Plaskett’s story Shut-In Valley is an ideal place to live, which is proved by the fact that there has never been a death there and that people who have once lived there can never live anywhere else. A few have remained in the valley a couple of years and then gone away because it was too dull for them. But they have always come back and say that it is like coming to Paradise.
There have never been any visitors in Shut-In Valley, but the people who live there are anxious to have them come. Miss Plaskett says it is not hard to get there. All you have to do is to take the train to Soledad, at which point you can take a stage to Gorda. So far the road is smooth. It may seem strange that the train should be left at Soledad when the valley is so much farther to the south, but this plan avoids climbing over a mountain. The road from Soledad lies in behind a chain of mountains that parallel the railroad track, and there are no heavy grades until after Gorda is reached.
But at this point all vehicles must be abandoned and the rest of the journey continued on foot or horseback. A rougher trail cannot be imagined. Not an hour’s work has been spent on it, and it simply winds in and out among bowlders, through mountain torrents and along the edge of cliffs. Onward and upward, beneath the shade of forests and over burning, sandy wastes. Not only is it a rough trail, but it is a dangerous one in many ways. It is but faintly marked on account of its not being used very much, and none but an experienced mountaineer can follow it. The torrents that have to be crossed are in many places over six feet deep, so that a horse has to swim in order to go from side to side. All along the trail the rocks are loose and liable to let horse and rider slip hundreds of feet to the bottom of the canyon. Half way between Gorda and Shut-In Valley there is a cabin where the night is passed and the journey continued in the morning.
The highest point on the trail is but a short distance from the valley and commands a splendid view of it. But the descent is no easy matter, because the trail is so steep a serious fall is likely unless great care is taken. However, the journey is worth all the trouble, because a most glorious welcome awaits the first visitor in Shut-In Valley.
It is now just thirty years since Shut-In Valley was settled, and but one doctor has ever been there. That was when one of the men fell down the trail and broke his arm. All other ailments cure themselves — that is, if there are any ailments; but nobody in the valley has ever taken any medicine.
Of the thirty-five people in the valley twenty-one were born there, and about a dozen have grown up there. There are in all eight families. Four of the children born in the valley have married.
All of the houses in Shut-In Valley are of the crudest description, but at the same time are of the most substantial kind. They are of both wood and stone, cut by the hands of the builders. The houses are not all in a bunch, as might be imagined, but are scattered all over the valley in the most picturesque manner. All are whitewashed, and present a pleasing appearance. The only public building is the schoolhouse, which has been built for about four years.
It would be a somewhat difficult matter to decide what form of government exists in Shut-In Valley. There is a great deal of government, and yet there is no government. Everybody does as he or she pleases so long as no other party is injured. There are no restrictions nor obligations of any kind, nor are there any office-holders.
The schoolhouse, previously referred to, is the general meeting place of the settlement, and all business is discussed there in the most informal manner. By common consent, or, possibly, natural selection, John Plaskett [i.e. William Lucas Plaskett] always occupies “the chair.” No records of any kind are kept, except such private memoranda as the settlers keep themselves. All business that is undertaken is finished or it is abandoned.
In all the history of this peaceful valley there has never been any crime nor wrong-doing of any kind. Such a thing as a jail is unthought of, and yet the people take no precautions against thieves. There is not a lock on any door in the valley, and as far as is known there is no need of any. Money is an almost useless commodity in this community. Between the residents it is unknown, as all their transactions are in the way of trade. If James has plenty of potatoes and George has plenty of apples, they are exchanged if either wants what the other has.
Nobody in Shut-In Valley ever works hard. The gardens and orchards around the houses, the poultry yards and game supply all the really necessary food. For sugar, coffee, clothes and books there are herds of cattle on the hills, and once a year a number of these are driven to market and sold to procure what cannot be produced in the valley.
And so these people spend their happy lives. They have books in plenty, and know not what it is to want. They are expert hunters and good surf fishermen. As far as the necessaries of life go they have all that they can ask. Worry and trouble are unknown. The only thing that could injure them would be some great convulsion of nature. Even a great political revolution would have little effect on them, for they are so out of the world that its ugly echoes would not reach them.
Illustrations on the original page: the mountain-and-trail banner; a prospector leading a pack mule up the trail; “An Interior”; a panoramic view of the valley; and “The Queen of Shut-In Valley.”
Transcribed faithfully from the original scan (The San Francisco Call, June 20, 1897, page 19); public domain.