 |
| Carmel Valley |
The 20,000 acres that comprise the Santa Lucia Preserve were originally part of two Mexican Land Grants.The first, El Potrero de San Carlos (Pastures of Saint Charles), was given by Governor Juan Alvarado in 1837 to Fructuoso del Real, a Mission Indian. He cultivated a portion of the land and kept about seventy horses and five or six hundred head of cattle, along with some sheep and a few milk cows. About 1838, Fructuoso built an adobe house where he lived with his wife, Ignacia and three daughters.
The other grant, San Francisquito (little St. Francis), was made to Dona Catalina Manzanellide Munras, wife of Esteban Munras, in 1835. Munras arrived in Monterey in 1830, served as alcalde in 1837.
Rancheros Potrero de San Carlos and San Francisquito went to Bradley Sargent in 1876. He called the ranch San Francisquito y San Carlos.
In 1924, George Gordon Moore purchased the ranch, which he called Rancho San Carlos, from the heirs of Bradley Sargent.
In 1990, after a half-century of ownership, the Oppenheimer family sold Rancho San Carlos and the Santa Lucia Preserve was created.
These 31 square miles of oak woodlands, savannas, grasslands, wetlands, redwood forests and stands of Monterey pine rise from 100 to 3,000 feet above sea level. They hold 54 distinct habitats virtually hidden from outside view by the surrounding ridges of the Santa Lucia Range, which plunges into the sea at Big Sur.
It was the year 1840, and today was a great day in the lives of the Borondas. They were on their way to occupy their land grant from Governor Alvarado, the 6,625-acre Los Laureles.
The Church Family and their Homestead (1884 to 1907)
"Vocabulary of the Rumsen language of the Indians of Carmel. Obtained from the Indian Ventura or Buenaventura, the blind Indian of Carmel who was born at Carmel in 1809. Monterey, July 27, 1878. Alph. Pinart"
The relatively little known Arroyo Seco River drains the eastside of the Ventana Mountains in California's scenic central Coast Range. The Arroyo Seco sustains a small population of the threatened steelhead trout, a federally protected species that migrates all the way from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in the clean riffles and deep cold pools of the river.
A Species of Special Concern (SSC) is a species that is experiencing serious (noncyclical) population declines or range retractions that, if continued could qualify it for State threatened or endangered status.
"Species of Special Concern" is an administrative designation and carries no formal legal status.
Garland Ranch Regional Park
San Clemente Dam
The popular Los Laureles Lodge dates back to the early 1830s when it was deeded to Señor Jose Boronda by the Mexican government. It was one of the largest of those early land grants, roughly 7,000 acres.
Among the first European immigrants to settle and farm the fertile valleys of the Central Coast were Englishmen James Meadows and Edward Berwick, the Irishman William Hatton, and the Scottish William Martin. Hatton became a dairy manager for the Carmel Valley operations supporting the Hotel Del Monte and rose to become manager of the extensive Pacific Improvement Company operations in Carmel Valley, with his headquarters at a rebuilt Los Laureles ranch house. Chinese labor ditched and piped water from an early dam at Los Padres to the Hotel Del Monte and Monterey Peninsula cities.
Back in 1973, Cal-Am asked the PUC for permission to increase its pumping in Carmel Valley, from a rate of about 4,500 acre-feet per year, to 6,000 acre-feet per year. The PUC refused. After reviewing the available evidence, they found that the aquifer could only sustain pumping of 4,500 acre-feet of water per year. This wasn't the answer that developers or the political leadership of the Monterey Peninsula wanted. They wanted enough water for unconstrained growth, and pumping it out of Carmel Valley was the easiest and cheapest way to get it. They needed help and, less than a year later, the State Department of Water Resources came riding to the rescue. Water Resources released a scientifically dubious report contradicting the PUC's finding and estimating that a whopping 15,000 acre-feet of water per year could be sustainably pumped from Carmel Valley. The PUC quickly capitulated and granted Cal-Am permission to pump more than 11,000 acre-feet per year.
But when large-scale pumping actually began, the river, embarrassingly for Cal-Am, started running dry right next to the pumps. This wasn't just an environmental problem; it was also a legal problem. It demonstrated that Cal-Am was capturing river water which they did not have a legal right to divert.
From: http://ventana.sierraclub.org/conservation/carmel_river/index.shtml
Picture from: GusC.A's photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/38029403@N03/
Drive up Carmel Valley Road, turn right onto Cachagua Road. Climb steeply over Tularcitos Ridge, then descend steeply to the Carmel River and Cachagua Creek valley. Near the bottom of the hill after 5.9 miles, turn sharp right onto Nason Road. Cross several speed bumps to County Park on the right, where the good pavement ends. Continue uphill past the ranger station and park in a dirt lot where there is a fence with locked vehicle gate. Enter the unlocked hiker's gate and walk on a dirt road .5 mile to Los Padres Dam.
The plan was for the school to run from October to May, with the teachers accompanying the student by train from the east to California and back, allowing for special stops along the way, with their routes varying through the northern and southern United States. The parents liked this program because of the travel education it provided the children.
The first school sites was located near the present-day Carmel Valley Manor. In 1929, a new location was found. Mr. Russell Hastings had just purchased a ranch in upper Carmel Valley.
From: Hastings http://www.hastingsreserve.org/HistoryWebHNHR/CVRHistSun.html
Rumsen is a member of the Costanoan, or Ohlonean, language family. Recognized as a distinct language family by the linguist Albert Gatschet in 1877, the Costanoan
The Boronda family, including José Manuel, his wife, Juana, and their 15 children, came to settle on the rancho. Thus, the Boronda family became the first permanent settlers in Carmel Valley.
From: www.nelshenderson.com
Rancho Tularcitos was a 26,581-acre Mexican land grant in present day Monterey County, California given in 1834 by Governor José Figueroa to Rafael Gomez. Tularcitos means "place of the little Tule thickets". The grant was in the upper Carmel Valley, along Tularcitos Creek, and was bounded on the west by Rancho Los Laureles.
"Life in the Valley was a blast. I don't think I wore shoes. I'd spend a lot of time at Rosie's Cracker Barrel. We'd come in to buy breakfast and wipe the dust off the cereal box. We'd sit on the bench with Rosie; he was blind, so we told him what we were buying and how much money we were handing him. "Sometimes we'd pull lemons from my mother's tree and then buy sugar and cups from Rosie on my mother's account, so we could set up a lemonade stand. It was the perfect upbringing."
It was built in 1927 as the real estate office for Robles Del Rio, the first subdivision in the valley. Rosie bought the structure in 1939, sold crackers out of the barrel, beans out of sacks, posted neighbors' mail between the shoestrings and pocket knives, stocked comics for kids, and ran a 6-stool bar in a back room for their parents.
From: http://montereypeninsula.blogspot.com/2008/11/rosies-cracker-barrel.html
From: http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_18903094?IADID=Search-www.montereyherald.com-www.montereyherald.com
80-year-old Robles Del Rio Lodge in California's Carmel Valley Destroyed by Early Morning Fire May 24, 2010--The landmark Robles Del Rio Lodge that had stood on its oak-shaded hilltop in Carmel Valley for more than 80 years burned to the ground early Sunday morning.
The lodge was built in 1928 by Frank Porter and had been the center of the community -- Carmel Valley Village was then called Robles del Rio -- and was the first lodge in Monterey County to feature a heated swimming pool, golf course and liquor license.
Bill Wood, a world-renowned hotelier, bought the lodge in 1939 and made it more exclusive. Visitors included Arthur Murray, Red Skelton, Doris Day and Tippi Hedren.
The Gurries family purchased the lodge in 1985 from Wood. In 1997 they won county approval to add 24 units. Financing fell apart, however, and the lodge was closed in February 2000.
Monterey County Herald http://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2010_2nd/May10_Robles.html
Photo from: mas'sma1's photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/36826169@N06/
In 1776, life changed drastically when the Hispanic Empire established the Mission in San Francisco. Within six weeks, all of the Ohlone that were living in what is now San Francisco were decimated, scattered, or brought into service at the Mission. The approximately 20,000 Ohlone people who had been living in the Bay Area at this time were reduced to less than 2,000 by 1810.
Born Joleen Lambert, she is part of one of the oldest ranching families in East Carmel Valley. As in any charismatic dynasty, being born a Lambert has a certain built-in prestige about it, not because they have airs or pretensions but because they are respectable folk who have made a name for themselves in horsemanship and hospitality and have that familial strain of uniqueness that draws people to them. The Lambert ranchhouse on Tassajara was her childhood home. I only know it as it is now--quaint, but forlorn and lonely. In its heyday, it teemed with friends and family. Set in an oak- and madrone-lined valley beside a creek, it''s a white and green farmhouse that faces the road and the pastures beyond it. It''s an unpretentious and charming set-up that out-of-town vehicles take notice of as they pass on through to hunt or hike in the Ventana Wilderness or soak in the Tassajara hot springs.
Owned by the Lamberts for a good part of the 20th century, the ranchhouse was the social center for Jamesburg.
Map of the route, Juan Bautista de Anza traveled in 1775-76 from Mexico to today's San Francisco, where he founded the Presidio of San Francisco.
The Ohlone are the original inhabitants of the Santa Cruz area, who over thousands of years developed complex cultures that were sustained through a deep relationship with the wildlife and natural resources of the land.
