Julia pfeiffer burns state park generator#

The multi-story house had a 16 foot wide marble staircase at its base and was decorated with fine furnishings and classic paintings. The entryway was inlaid with an ornamental brass fish, a gold octopus, and a compass rose.

It had gardens around the house and featured a view from the master bedroom of what was then named Saddle Rock Cove. They built the home halfway down the cliff from the newly completed highway. The Browns replaced the cabin in 1940 with a modern two-story home named Waterfall House. It supplied power to three residences, a blacksmith shop, and later a funicular railway that connected the home to the highway.

Julia pfeiffer burns state park generator#

The undershot wheel ran a 32-volt generator and was the first electric power in the Big Sur area. He installed the wheel on McWay Creek in 1932. He used hand-split redwood from the canyon and other materials he bought. Saddle Rock Ranch foreman Hans Ewoldsen worked in the machine shop of the highway construction crew to build a Pelton wheel. Construction of the Carmel San Simeon Highway lasted from 1919–1937. The Browns first built a rough redwood cabin on a site at the top of cliffs opposite McWay Falls. Hélène formed a close friendship with Julia until she died in 1928. A daughter of the first permanent settlers of European origin in Big Sur, she and her husband leased a ranch at Burns Creek and leased pasture from the McWays at Saddle Rock Ranch. Julia Pfeiffer Burns, daughter of pioneer homesteader Michael Pfeiffer, married John Burns in 1914 at age 47, and leased pasture from the Browns. They purchased the adjacent 1,800 acres (730 ha) cattle ranch from McWay. They took a horse and mule trip to the Big Sur area and found Saddle Rock Cove where a waterfall poured over the rocky bluff into the Pacific.

Representative Lathrop Brown and his wife Hélène were seeking an isolated point on the coast where they could build a home. Redwoods in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State ParkĬhristopher and Rachel McWay homesteaded the property in the late 1870s. The park is named after Julia Pfeiffer Burns, a respected resident and rancher in the Big Sur region in the early 20th century, who lived in the area for much of her life until her death in 1928. The park is also home to 300-foot (90 m) redwoods which are over 2,500 years old. A main feature of the park is McWay Falls, which drops over a cliff of 80 feet (24 m) into the Pacific Ocean. Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park is a state park in California, 12 miles south of Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park on California's Pacific coast.