Text adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and available under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)

Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the central California coast where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. This landscape produces stunning views and has made Big Sur a popular tourist destination.

Big Sur's Cone Peak is the highest coastal mountain in the lower 48 states, ascending nearly a mile (5,155 feet/1.6km) above sea level, only three miles (4.8 km) from the ocean.

Although Big Sur has no specific boundaries, many definitions of the area include the 90 miles (145km) of coastline between the Carmel River and San Carpoforo Creek, and extend about 20 miles (32km) inland to the eastern foothills of the Santa Lucias, while other sources limit the eastern border to the coastal flanks of these mountains, only three to 12 miles (4.8-19km) inland. The northern end of Big Sur is about 120 miles (193km) south of San Francisco, and the southern end is approximately 245 miles (394km) north of Los Angeles.

Three tribes of aboriginal Americans—the Ohlone, Esselen, and Salinan—were apparently the first people to inhabit the area now known as Big Sur. Archaeological evidence shows that they lived in Big Sur for thousands of years, leading a nomadic, hunter-gatherer existence.[2]

Along with the rest of California, Big Sur became part of Mexico when it gained independence from Spain in 1821. In 1834, the Mexican governor José Figueroa granted a 9000-acre rancho in northern Big Sur to Juan Bautista Alvarado, and his uncle by marriage, Captain J.B.R Cooper, soon after assumed ownership.

The oldest surviving structure in Big Sur, the so-called Cooper Cabin, was built in 1861 on the Cooper ranch.[6] In 1848, as a result of the Mexican-American War, Mexico ceded California to the United States. After passage of the federal Homestead Act in 1862, a few hardy pioneers moved into Big Sur, drawn by the promise of free 160-acre parcels.

From the 1860s through the turn of the twentieth century, lumbering cut down most of the coast redwoods. Along with industries based on tanoak bark harvesting, gold mining, and limestone processing, the local economy provided more jobs and supported a larger population than today. In the 1880s, a gold rush boom town, Manchester, sprang up at Alder Creek in the far south. The town boasted a population of 200, four stores, a restaurant, five saloons,

a dance hall, and a hotel, but it was abandoned soon after the turn of the century and burned to the ground in 1909.

After the industrial boom faded, the early decades of the twentieth century passed with few changes, and Big Sur remained a nearly inaccessible wilderness. As late as the 1920s, only two homes in the entire region had electricity, locally generated by water wheels and windmills.

Most of the population lived without power until connections to the California electric grid were established in the early 1950s. Big Sur changed rapidly when Highway 1 was completed in 1937 after eighteen years of construction, aided by New Deal funds and the use of convict labor. Highway 1 dramatically altered the local economy and brought the outside world much closer, with ranches and farms quickly giving way to tourist venues and second homes. Even with these modernizations, Big Sur was spared the worst excesses of development, due largely to residents who fought to preserve the land.

Big Sur remains sparsely populated, with fewer than 1500 inhabitants, according to the 2000 US Census. The people of Big Sur today are a diverse mix: descendants of the original settler and rancher families, artists and other creative types, along with wealthy homeowners from the worlds of entertainment and commerce. Real estate costs are as impressive as the views, with most homes priced above $2 million.

There are no urban areas, although three small clusters of gas stations, restaurants, and motels are often marked on maps as "towns": Big Sur, in the Big Sur River valley, Lucia, near Limekiln State park, and Gorda, on the southern coast. The economy is almost completely based on tourism.

Much of the land along the coast is privately owned or has been donated to the state park system, while the vast Los Padres National Forest and Fort Hunter Liggett Military Reservation encompass most of the inland areas. The mountainous terrain, environmentally conscious residents, and lack of property available for development have kept Big Sur almost unspoiled, and it retains an isolated, frontier mystique.

Besides sightseeing from the highway, Big Sur offers hiking, mountain climbing, and other outdoor activities. There are a few small, scenic beaches popular for walking, but usually unsuitable for swimming because of unpredictable currents and frigid temperatures.

Big Sur's nine state parks have many points of interest, including one of the few waterfalls on the Pacific Coast that plunges directly into the ocean, the ruins of a grand stone cliffside house that was the region's first electrified dwelling, and the only complete nineteenth century lighthouse complex open to the public in California, set on a lonely, windswept hill that looks like an island in the fog.