Mabel’s Writings

1959

• Story of an ‘Empire’ Symbolized by Chimney

  A lone stone chimney above Lime Kiln Canyon is all that remains of Victor Girard's redwood-pole mansion — an empire that lasted barely a decade.

  1959-05
• Few Drives as Scenic as Coast’s Cabrillo Highway

  Where does Big Sur begin and end? Mabel settles it, then takes you the whole way — San Simeon to Point Lobos, stop by stop. Now with our interactive map and free PDF drive guide.

  1959-07
• Mansfields Were Pacific Valley Pioneers

  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.

  1959-09
• Camaldoli Hermits Live in Seclusion

  Behind a mosaic sign south of Lucia, white-robed monks keep medieval silence on 600 acres above the Pacific.

  1959-12

1960

• 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.

  1960-01
• Tony Vasquez – Story of a Horseman

  Born in the Palo Corona hills, burned out at five, an expert rider by eight — Tony Vasquez, the coast's legendary horseman.

  1960-02
• Henry Melville Attracted to Coast by Los Burros Gold

  Giant-strong Henry Melville came to Los Burros for the gold — and left stories they still tell: robbers thrown from his cabin, a loaded wagon lifted bare-handed.

  1960-03
• San Simeon Rancho Story Is Told by Mabel Plaskett

  Cabrillo's 'Bay of Sardines,' a whaling captain's store, the Hearst boys at play — four centuries of San Simeon in one telling. Sebastian's Store was 102 years old when she wrote it.

  1960-04
• 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.

  1960-05
• 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.

  1960-06
• Lopez Point Perpetuates Name of Early Settlers

  Manuel Lopez came from Mexico about 1870 and built by the sea at the point that keeps his name — through fortune, rodeo trophies, and terrible loss.

  1960-08
• Dolan Creek Named After Early Coast Homesteader

  Eccentric Phillip Dolan trusted no bank, drove his cattle to Monterey alone, and left a thousand dollars sewn in an old coat.

  1960-11

1961

• One of Few Remaining Jolon Indians Resides in Lockwood

  In an old adobe near Lockwood lives Joe Moro, one of the last of the Jolon Indians — his mother born of the mission people under the great oaks.

  1961-02
• 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.

  1961-03
• Parishioners’ Labor Has Built St. Luke’s

  In 1884 three Plaskett brothers rode horseback from Pacific Valley to Jolon to raise a church — St. Luke's, built by its parishioners, standing yet.

  1961-04
• People From Every Walk of Life Lured by Coast Magic

  Gorda: a handful of buildings against the pines, and a cast of characters from every walk of life — including an instant-portrait artist in the hills.

  1961-06
• Pacific Ocean Holds Wide Fisherman, Vacationer Appeal

  Byron's 'deep and dark blue ocean' — the fishermen, abalone hunters, and vacationers drawn to the coast's edge, in Mabel's salute to the sea itself.

  1961-08
• Name of George Ames Is Etched in Coast History

  George Ames rode down from Santa Cruz at fourteen to work for Jim Prewitt — and rode straight into coast legend.

  1961-09
• California-Oregon Coastline Unfolds Majestic Panorama

  Two coast natives drive north to Oregon and back — Mabel's own road trip up the Pacific edge she loved, September 1961.

  1961-10
• Lumber Mills Once Buzzed in the Lucias

  Where the Nacimiento road tops the divide, Mill Creek springs to life — and once powered the sawmills of the Lucias, including her father's.

  1961-11
• Mailmen Are Important Link In Coast Country History

  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.

  1961-11

1962

• Huge, Spouting Whales a Common Sight Along Coast

  Every October the gray whales stream south past the coast to calve in Baja — a migration the coast families set their calendars by.

  1962-01
• Quaint Big Sur Inn Is Work Of the ‘Master Builder’

  Grandpa Deetjen's hand-built Norwegian inn at Castro Canyon — rustic rooms, record concerts, and the 'Master Builder' himself.

  1962-03
• Camp Pico Blanco Is Ideal For Scout Summer Activity

  In the Ventanas — 'the Windows' — below Pico Blanco, the Boy Scouts made a summer camp of the old Harlan country.

  1962-07
• An Old Landmark Lost with Removal of Mansfield Home

  'This old house is getting shaky...' — watching the Mansfield home, a Pacific Valley landmark for generations, hauled away.

  1962-08
• Sea Otter Population on the Upswing Along the Coast

  Hunted to near-extinction for their fur, the sea otters were rediscovered off Bixby Bridge in 1938 — and by Mabel's day were thriving down the whole coast.

  1962-12

1963

• Forget Your Worldly Cares At Nepenthe Restaurant

  'Wherever you may go, people ask about Nepenthe' — the cliff-top restaurant where the coast forgets its worldly cares.

  1963-01
• Jolon Remembered as Thriving Community on Camino Real

  Portolá camped there in 1769; a century later Jolon was the thriving crossroads of the Camino Real — saloons, hotels, and fiestas three days long.

  1963-03
• Lots of Jade…Rugged Monterey Coast Line Is Paradise for Rock Hounds

  'Petrified dragon tears': the Chinese revered jade for centuries — and the Monterey coast serves it up to any rock hound patient enough. The article behind our Jade Cove story.

  1963-04
• Plaskett Creek Campground Is Popular Vacation Spot

  The campground at Plaskett Creek sits on the family's first homesite — Mabel tells how the pioneers came over the Indian trails from Jolon.

  1963-05
• Pacific Hot Springs Lodge Is A Popular Coast Spa

  On the old Esselen encampment above the sea, Hot Springs Lodge draws bathers from around the world — the place we now call Esalen.

  1963-06
• Exotic Gardens Is Popular Tourist Stop Near Cambria

  Old-timers rode from Gorda to Cambria in a day, saddling before dawn — now the Exotic Gardens greet tourists at the trail's end.

  1963-08
• Prized Possession of the Coast Are Its Big Trees

  'My earliest memories are of playing house in a hollow redwood' — Mabel on the big trees, oldest of living things and the coast's proudest possession.

  1963-10

1964

• Ship Wrecks Stressed Need For Point Sur Lighthouse

  The wrecks of the Los Angeles and the Ventura — 150 victims clinging to rigging, salvaged linens dressing the coast ranches — made the case for Point Sur's light.

  1964-01
• Pt. Piedras Lighthouse Keeps Coast Shippers on Course

  Spanish embargoes, shipwrecks on the white rocks, and the Fresnel light that finally kept the coast's shippers on course at Piedras Blancas.

  1964-02
• Saddle Rock Ranch Is Now Memorial to Coast Pioneer

  Who was Julia Pfeiffer Burns? The ranchwoman who shod horses and roped with the best — remembered in the park at Saddle Rock.

  1964-05
• Mabel Relives Days of Her Youth Spent on Mill Creek

  '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.

  1964-09

Undated

• Dani Family History Is Told

  A shelf of level land a thousand feet above the sea: the Dani place, where Gabriel Dani built a one-armed empire and Lucia got her name.

• ER Sans Nevada History

  Her father in full: Edward R. Sans, farmer, lumberman, explorer — Nevada's 'Coyote Man,' the government's legendary predator hunter.

• History of Coast Schools

  Part one of her history of the coast schools — starting with the Redwood School of 1878, built of notched logs without a single nail.

• 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.

• History of Early Orchards Linked to Luther Burbank

  Luther Burbank's cuttings came down the coast in 1898 with Linwood Mitchell — and the mountain orchards still bear the evidence.

• Jaime d’Angula- A Symbol of Man’s Right to Freedom

  The strangest of all the Big Sur characters: Jaime de Angulo — Paris-born doctor, cowboy, linguist — riding the ridges as a symbol of man's right to be free.

• Nacimiento Homesteaders Picked Real “Beauty Spot”

  Up the Nacimiento from the old McKern place, the homesteaders of the 1890s picked the prettiest valley in the Lucias.

• 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.

• Post Summit Named for One Of Early Big Sur Settlers

  Post's hill is the very heart of Big Sur — named for W.B. Post, who landed at a coast whaling station in 1850 and built a ranch that outlived the century.

• South Monterey County Writers Part II

  A 2007 appreciation of Mabel herself — 'Belle' Sans Plaskett with her horse Cleo — by historian Susan Raycraft.

• Tony Fontes – The Story of a Rugged, Fun-Loving Horseman

  His forefathers heard the first Padres sing at San Antonio Mission; Tony Fontes grew up to be the coast's rugged, fun-loving horseman.

• View from Lucia Lodge Draws Thousands of Guests Each Year

  In 1932 the road ended at Krenkel Corners; beyond lay wilderness. Lucia Lodge grew where the trail gave out — and the veranda still hangs over the sea.

• “Old Rocky” – A Tale of the Mighty Hunter of the Lucias

  Absolam Beasley — 'Old Rocky,' raised with an Indian tribe in the Rockies — the mighty hunter who kept the Lucias' lions honest.

• “The Red House,” Three Story Log Structure, Still Standing

  The three-story log house on the Little Sur — Jeffers' 'zebra-striped' landmark of 1885 — still standing when Mabel wrote, paint and poetry intact.