• Sutil Island, a 1,250 foot-long island, 1,900 feet off the southwest end of Santa Barbara Island was named after one of merchant-explorer Sebastian Vizcaino’s ships.
• Gaspar de Portola founded Presidio of San Carlos Borromeo de Monterey, at present day Monterey in 1770. In 1822, the Mexicans built a fort about one mile northwest of the original presidio. After American occupation of Monterey in 1846, Colonel Richard B, Mason had a redoubt build in 1847, about 700 feet up the hill above the Mexican installation.
• In the 1880s, James J. Pierce, a proprietor of local timber operations, laid out a town originally named Pacific Mills, but postal authorities objected to the name and it was renamed Ben Lomond for nearby Ben Lomond Mountain. The mountain had been named for a Scottish wine-growing area by Scotsman James Burns who planted a vineyard on the ridge in 1850.
• Bourdieu Valley, one mile west of Smith Mountain along the uppermost part of Pancho Rico Creek, is named for Ed Bourdieu who raised cattle and sheep there sometime after 1900.
...just a taste from the scads of fascinating facts to be mined from Durham’s Place-Names of California’s Central Coast.
This gazetteer, one of fourteen volumes in the Durham’s Place-Names of California Series, is derived from California’s Geographic Names: A Gazetteer of Historic and Modern Names of the State, David L. Durham’s definitive gazetteer of California. Each volume of the series contains the complete body of entries contained in California’s Geographic Names for the counties covered.
Thousands of topographic features, such as ridges, peaks, canyons and valleys; water features, such as streams, lakes, waterfalls, and springs; and cultural features, such as cities, towns, crossroads and railroad sidings are included. Many entries include information about who named the feature, when and why, as well as alternate or obsolete names. A complete bibliography of sources is included.
Longitude and latitude are given for each feature, a boon to hikers wishing to use GPS devices to keep on track to their destinations.
Guaranteed to provide addictively entertaining browsing for residents of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Benito, Monterey, and Santa Cruz counties, this book will also delight:
• Tourists • Historians • Geographers • Students • Writers • Cartographers
• Genealogists • Hikers and outdoor folks of all kinds
• Great for browsing.
• Indispensable for research.
• Keep a copy on your tablet or e-reader to use on trips!
