On the Banks of San Simeon Creek

The earliest pioneer families at San Simeon Creek began to arrive in 1858. They lived in cabins down in the fields and by necessity were phenomenally hardworking and closely united. But they were also free, free to use every scrap of courage, education, skill and grit they could squeeze out of their native gifts. They were endlessly busy - killing pigs, grafting trees, churning butter, digging cows out of landslides, sowing wheat, trimming apple trees and grape vines, hoeing...
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The earliest pioneer families at San Simeon Creek began to arrive in 1858. They lived in cabins down in the fields and by necessity were phenomenally hardworking and closely united. But they were also free, free to use every scrap of courage, education, skill and grit they could squeeze out of their native gifts. They were endlessly busy - killing pigs, grafting trees, churning butter, digging cows out of landslides, sowing wheat, trimming apple trees and grape vines, hoeing raspberries and currants, raising cattle...the list was endless. For fun they might go to Pujol's rodeo, to the pine woods strawberrying or perhaps an afternoon of trout fishing.All this we now know, along with similarly revealing details for hundreds of other days, thanks to recently recovered diaries and letters of one of the earliest family groups to homestead in the area. Dr. E.A. Clark and his sister Sarah Mariah Clark were the first teachers in northern San Luis Obispo County. E.A. also farmed and practiced medicine, dentistry, and law. His sister Lovina Clark Dart wrote eloquent and touching letters from her frontier cabin, while his son-in-law, Chester Webster Pinkham, kept a homesteading diary. The clan's ability with language, their drive to commit their feelings to paper, and their ties to the many people they knew, bring to life in their own words the formative years of the County.