There is a 90-mile stretch of road clinging to the cliffs between Carmel and San Simeon, with the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Santa Lucia mountains on the other. The road is Highway One and the area is Big Sur. Big Sur is approximately 300 miles north of Los Angeles and 150 miles south of San Francisco. The name Big Sur came from the name El Sur Grande, “the Big South,” which was the name given to an unexplored and unmapped wilderness area along the California coast south of Monterey. Big Sur began to be populated in the late 1800s, and many of the early settlers gave their names to the area--Cooper Point, Post Summit, Pfeiffer Ridge and many others. By the early 1900s, Big Sur had a large population due to the lumber industry’s harvesting of redwood from the area. The area, however, was still very remote.  In 1937, after eighteen years of construction, Highway One was completed. Highway One is known as California’s first scenic highway and is known the world over for its beauty and natural scenery.

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