Stories

True stories of the Plasketts and their neighbors — bears and gold, shipwrecks and weddings — drawn from letters, newspapers, and family memory.

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The mail went through: Plaskett boys swimming icy rivers with the pack mule rolling in the current.

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Phillip Dolan trusted no bank. When he died, they found a thousand dollars sewn in his old coat.

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Captain Joseph Clark's whaling station made San Simeon a town of 200 before the Hearsts ever came.

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Burned out at five, expert by eight — Tony Vasquez was born to the saddle in the Palo Corona hills.

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Consumption came to the Lopez house by the sea and took four of them, one after another.

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Marie Lopez rode against the best at Salinas Big Week and carried home the trophies.

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George Ames was fourteen when he hired on with Jim Prewitt — and the bunkhouse tales grew from there.

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Victor Girard built a redwood-pole palace above Lime Kiln in 1925. His empire lasted a decade.

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Girard's men shot deer whenever he pleased — until a game warden checked what he was driving home to Los Angeles.

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The Redwood School opened in 1878 in a building Michael Dani notched together without a single nail.

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The Plaskett brothers crossed the mountains to raise St. Luke's at Jolon, stained glass and all, in 1879.

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For three days every September, Jolon filled with music, horses and lace for Mexican Independence Day.