Piedras Blancas Light Station
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Piedras Blancas Light Station
Piedras Blancas Light Station is located at Point Piedras Blancas, about west by northwest of San Simeon, California. It was added to the California Coastal National Monument in 2017. History and management The first-order Fresnel lens at Piedras Blancas was first illuminated on February 15, 1875. The Piedras Blancas lighthouse was originally high to the top of the ventilator ball, but earthquakes damaged the structure over the years. On December 31, 1948, final damage from an earthquake centered off the point led to the decision to remove the upper three floors: the fourth landing, watch room, and lantern. Missing the ornate upper floors, the truncated lighthouse now stands about tall. The lens was moved and is on display in the nearby community of Cambria. A sound signal was added in 1906. In 1939, management was transferred from the United States Lighthouse Service to the United States Coast Guard. In 1975, the light was automated, the sound signal removed, and the lig ...
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San Simeon, California
San Simeon (Spanish: ''San Simeón'', meaning "St. Simon") is a village and Census-designated place on the Pacific coast of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Its position along State Route 1 is about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, each of those cities being roughly away. A key feature of the area is Hearst Castle, a hilltop mansion built for William Randolph Hearst in the early 20th century that is now a tourist attraction. The area is also home to a large northern elephant seal rookery, known as the Piedras Blancas rookery, located north of San Simeon on Highway 1. The area is also home to an invasive zebra population of slightly over 100. History Humans first settled the local area at least 11,000 years ago. Prehistorically, the local area was inhabited by the Chumash people, including a large village south of San Simeon at Morro Creek. In 1542 the coastal exploration of Juan Cabrillo discovered the bay and named it the Bay of Sardines. ...
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California State Route 1
State Route 1 (SR 1) is a major north–south state highway that runs along most of the Pacific coastline of the U.S. state of California. At , it is the longest state route in California, and the second-longest in the US after Montana Highway 200. SR 1 has several portions designated as either Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), Cabrillo Highway, Shoreline Highway, or Coast Highway. Its southern terminus is at Interstate 5 (I-5) near Dana Point in Orange County and its northern terminus is at U.S. Route 101 (US 101) near Leggett in Mendocino County. SR 1 also at times runs concurrently with US 101, most notably through a stretch in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and across the Golden Gate Bridge. The highway is designated as an All-American Road. In addition to providing a scenic route to numerous attractions along the coast, the route also serves as a major thoroughfare in the Greater Los Angeles Area, the San Francisco Bay Area, and several ...
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Lighthouses On The National Register Of Historic Places In California
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs a ...
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Lighthouses Completed In 1875
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs and ...
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Piedras Blancas Motel
Piedras Blancas Motel is a vintage roadside motel-and-diner complex located along the Central Coast of California approximately seven miles north of the historic village of San Simeon. It is a part of the Hearst San Simeon State Park, and has been considered for reuse as a campground and budget lodging . Characteristics The property is the very last remaining ocean-front complex of its kind to exist along such a remote, wild and rural section of two-lane historic State Route 1 anywhere south of the Big Sur Coast and was the only remaining private development amid of coast scheduled to become parks. Owners It is owned by the state park system of California which has yet to respond to a variety of preservation efforts. The property is visible on historic maps of the William Randolph Hearst holdings as being amid the Hearst owned for along this coastline, the one tiny parcel of land he was never able to acquire from its owners. History The exact construction date is uncerta ...
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Rancho Piedra Blanca
Rancho Piedra Blanca was a large, Mexican land grant in present-day San Luis Obispo County, California given in 1840 by Governor Juan Alvarado to José de Jesús Pico. The name means "white rock" and refers to rocks painted white by its bird population. The grant extended south along the Pacific Coast below Big Sur from Ragged Point to Pico Creek (formerly Arroyo del Pinal), where it adjoins Rancho San Simeon. The land grant includes the original townsite and post office for San Simeon, the Hearst Ranch headquarters, and Hearst Castle. History José de Jesús Pico (1806-1892), a member of the Pico family of California (a prominent Californio family), was the son of Jose Dolores Pico and Isabel Cota. He was born in Monterey in 1806. His brother, Antonio Maria Pico, was the grantee of Rancho Pescadero. Another brother was the bandit Salomon Pico. José de Jesús Pico was a soldier, and married Francisca Zaviera Trinidad Antonia Gabriela Villavicencio (b. 1813) in 1832. O ...
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List Of Lighthouses In The United States
This is a list of lighthouses in the United States. The United States has had approximately a thousand lights as well as light towers, range lights, and pier head lights. Michigan has the most lights of any state with over 150 past and present lights. Lighthouses that are in former U.S. territories are not listed here. Most of the lights in the United States have been built and maintained by the Coast Guard (since 1939) and its predecessors, the United States Lighthouse Service (1910–1939) and the United States Lighthouse Board (1852–1910). Before the Lighthouse Board was established, local collectors of customs were responsible for lighthouses under Stephen Pleasonton. As their importance to navigation has declined and as public interest in them has increased, the Coast Guard has been handing over ownership and in some cases responsibility for running them to other parties, the chief of them being the National Park Service under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation ...
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Cayucos
Cayucos (Spanish for "Canoe") is an unincorporated coastal town in San Luis Obispo County, California, along California State Route 1 between Cambria to the north and Morro Bay to the south. The population was 2,505 at the 2020 census, down from 2,592 at the 2010 census. History The area was settled by the Chumash people approximately 11000 to 10000 BC. It included a large village to the south of Cayucos at Morro Creek. The first European land exploration of Alta California, the Spanish Portolà expedition, camped in the vicinity of today's Cayucos on September 9, 1769. Coming from the previous campsite near Morro Bay, Franciscan missionary and expedition member Juan Crespi noted in his diary that "In the four hours that we traveled, making at the most three leagues, we encountered eight arroyos by which the water from the mountains runs to the sea, along whose edge we traveled. We halted at the eighth watering place in a moderately broad valley, into which enters an estuary ...
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Lompoc
Lompoc ( ; Chumash: ''Lum Poc'') is a city in Santa Barbara County, California. Located on the Central Coast, Lompoc has a population of 43,834 as of July 2021. Lompoc has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people, who called the area Lum Poc, meaning "stagnant waters" or "lagoon" in the local Purisimeño language. The Spanish called the area Lompoco after Fermín de Lasuén had established Mission La Purísima in 1787. In 1837, the Mexican government sold the area as the Rancho Lompoc land grant. Following the U.S. conquest of California, multiple settlers acquired the Lompoc Valley, including William Welles Hollister, who sold the land around the mission to the Lompoc Valley Land Company, which established a temperance colony which incorporated in 1888 as Lompoc. Lompoc is often considered a military town because it is near Vandenberg Space Force Base. History Before the Spanish conquest, the area around Lompoc was inhabited by the Chumash people. The Or ...
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Point Conception
Point Conception (Chumash: ''Humqaq'') is a headland along the Gaviota Coast in southwestern Santa Barbara County, California. It is the point where the Santa Barbara Channel meets the Pacific Ocean, and as the corner between the mostly north-south trending portion of coast to the north and the east-west trending part of the coast near Santa Barbara, it makes a natural division between Southern and Central California, and is commonly used as such in regional weather forecasts. The Point Conception Lighthouse is at its tip. Toponymy Point Conception was named ''Cabo de Galera'' by Spanish maritime explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542. In 1602, Sebastian Vizcaíno sailed past again, renaming the protruding headland ''Punta de la Limpia Concepción'' ("Point of the Immaculate Conception"). Vizcaíno's name stuck, and was later anglicized to today's version. Chumash beliefs The Chumash people of the region have traditionally known Point Conception as the "Western Gate", thro ...
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The Monster Of Piedras Blancas
''The Monster of Piedras Blancas'' is a 1959 independently made American black-and-white science fiction-monster film. It was produced by Jack Kevan, written and directed by Irvin Berwick, and stars Jeanne Carmen, Les Tremayne, John Harmon, Don Sullivan, Forrest Lewis, and Pete Dunn. The film was released by Filmservice Distributors Corporation as a double feature with ''Okefenokee''. ''The Monster of Piedras Blancas'' was influenced by ''Creature from the Black Lagoon'' (1954). Kevan, who had supervised the manufacture of the Gill-man suit and worked on Mole People costumes at Universal-International, created the Piedras Blancas monster costume. Kevan employed several of his former Universal associates on the picture, including soundman Joe Lapis and prop master Eddie Keys. Plot In the sleepy California town of Piedras Blancas, Sturges, the lighthouse keeper, is very superstitious and concerned for the safety of his teenage daughter, Lucy. He leaves food for a sea monster who ...
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Santa Cruz Sentinel
The ''Santa Cruz Sentinel'' is a daily newspaper published in Santa Cruz, California, covering Santa Cruz County, California, and owned by Media News Group. Ottaway Community Newspapers, a division of Dow Jones & Company bought the paper in 1982 from the McPherson family. Community Newspaper Holdings bought the ''Sentinel'' in late 2006 from Ottaway, but quickly sold it, February 2, 2007, to MediaNews Group. The MediaNews Group formed Digital First Media in 2013 when it merged with Journal Register Company. The company is controlled by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital Alden Global Capital is a hedge fund based in Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 2007 by Randall D. Smith. Its managing director is Heath Freeman. By mid-2020, Alden had stakes in roughly two hundred American newspapers. The company .... Staff * Publisher/Editor:Jim Gleim * Director of Operations and Advertising: Steve Bennett * Managing Editor: Melissa Murphy References External links ...
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