Things to do / Travel Guide
The central California coast was originally home to the Yelamu and the Ohlone people who are thought to have arrived in the area as far back as 500 B.C. These people were known for working the land as farmers and hunters but, unfortunately, with the arrival of European settlers, the Ohlone people were decimated.
The Spaniards were the first to settle the region, and, as a result, many of the towns and cities in this area have Spanish names, such as San Luis Obispo, San Simeon, and Santa Cruz. At first, Spanish colonizers divided the region into missions that endeavored to spread Catholicism across the state. The first European settlement in the area was established in Monterey in 1770, which served as the capital of “Upper California” (while “Lower California” referred to Baja California in what is present day Mexico).
The History of San Francisco
San Francisco was first established as a Catholic mission and named after St. Francis. Before the arrival of Europeans, the area of San Francisco was first inhabited by Native Americans from the Ohlone tribe, who were subjugated by Spanish colonialists and incorporated into Catholic missions across the state. In 1839, the mission system broke apart into ranches with the departure of the Spanish. In the late 1840s, the United States took control of the region during the Mexican-American War. In 1849, with the discovery of gold on the western side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the California Gold Rush began - the waves of immigrants who began to flood the region were called the “Forty-Niners.” The Gold Rush forever insured world-wide interest in California, henceforth called “the Golden State,” and also attracted new settlers from across North America. Many of the gold trackers that came out to California decided to stay and these settlers eventually started various farming communities, many of which flourish until today.
During the first part of the 1900s, the central California coast became a popular tourist destination.
San Francisco, the most well-known city in the central California coast region, was a booming entrepreneurial city with a fast-growing population until 1906, when a major earthquake was followed by a devastating city-wide fire. Before the smoked cleared, many people fled from San Francisco to other areas across the state and nation but “Frisco,” as it is starting to be called again, rebounded quickly and rebuilt itself. This newly rejuvenated metropolis helped to set a precedent and establish the idea of an “indestructible California” that can, with time, even undo the effects of natural disasters, such as earthquakes. As a result, California as a whole, and San Francisco and the Bay Area in particular, have for decades had a reputation as being “robust,” both in terms of economy as well as infrastructure.
Most recently, the computer industry has become the driving force of life and economy in the Silicon Valley, which is the area in and around San Jose. The name “Silicon Valley” was coined in 1971 by computer-expert-cum-journalist Don Hoefler and the valley part of this moniker refers primarily to the Santa Clara Valley, formerly some of the most fertile and productive agricultural land in the country. Silicon Valley got its name due to the sheer number and volume of technology related products that are designed, manufactured, and produced in this area. The driving force in this technology was semiconductor chips made from silicon (not to be confused with Silicone!). These devices were invented at Fairchild Semiconductor and are now everywhere - from the tips of you fingers to billions of miles beyond Pluto. Located mostly in San Jose, and centered primarily in the town of Sunnyvale, the Silicon Valley also straddles the northern part of the Santa Clara Valley, the southern edges of the city of San Francisco, and Menlo Park in East Bay. During the 1980s, San Jose and its environs experienced a housing boom that slowly turned this relatively mid-sized town into the third-largest city in the state of California.
The History of Napa Valley and Sonoma County
The second most visited area of the state of California is the wine country of Napa Valley and Sonoma County. California wine production truly started in Sonoma County at the Sebastiani Vineyards and Winery, which started off as part of the Sonoma Mission set up by the Spanish in 1824. Napa Valley and Sonoma County were not always as well known as they are today. They literally burst onto the wine scene when the Stags' Leap Winery beat the famous Mouton Rothschild in a 1976 Paris wine competition, thus putting the region on the proverbial wine-making map. Today visitors to Napa Valley can pay a visit to the Stags' Leap Winery to taste their answers to Syrah, Chardonnay, Viognier, and Merlot, as well the wine that won that 1976 Paris competition, Cabernet Sauvignon.
The History of Big Sur
To the south, the 90-mile stretch of coastline called Big Sur was first inhabited by the Esselen people and a small group of Ohlone people who lived in the area as far back as 3,000 years ago. By the time the Spanish arrived to “El Grande Sur,” as they called it, in 1770 their numbers were in the thousands. The first settlement was set up by the Spanish in the 1800s before Big Sur was politically incorporated in 1834 into what would later become the state of California in 1850. After statehood, Big Sur remained, much like it has until today, fairly remote.
The History of Salinas Valley
The first settlers to Salinas were Spanish explorers in the late 1700s to early 1800s, but it was the American agriculturalists that first came to the Salinas Valley around the same time who established the town of Salinas. From then on, Salinas became known as a blue-collar farming town famous for its produce which, to this day, includes lettuce, watermelons, carrots, broccoli, cabbages, spinach, and, the tastiest one of them all, strawberries. In 1939, John Steinbeck put Salinas on the map with his Pulitzer-prize winning “The Grapes of Wrath.” Written by Salinas born-and-raised writer, John Steinbeck, “The Grapes of Wrath” chronicled the lives of a Depression-era family in this part of central California. It spawned a whole series of work produced by Nobel prize winner John Steinbeck, where Salinas and the surrounding Monterey Peninsula served as the scenic backdrop to many of his novels, most famous of which were “Cannery Row” and “East of Eden.”
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