Cambria, California

Cambria remains very dear to our hearts as we owned vacation rentals in this part of California for many years. It is located in halfway on Pacific Coast CA Highway 101 between San Francisco and Los Angeles, 10 miles south of Hearst Castle, 2.5 hours south of Carmel and a fantastic drive down Big Sur.

The name Cambria was chosen in 1869 and is the Latin name for Wales. Previously, the town had gone by the names of Slabtown, Roseville, San Simeon and Santa Rosa. Cambria is located on the Rancho Santa Rosa Mexican land grant given in 1841 to Julian Estrada. Settlers were drawn to the area because of the fertile lands, streams, and lumber. Miners were attracted to the area by the 1862 discovery of cinnabar, the ore from which quicksilver can be made.

For a while, Cambria was a boomtown, with over a quarter of a million dollars worth of quicksilver shipped out of San Simeon harbor between 1867 and 1870 and more than 150 mining claims filed during that time. The most successful of these claims was the Oceanic Quicksilver Mining Company, which at one time employed 300 people-the largest mine in the area and the sixth largest in the world. By 1878, mercury prices started to fall and Cambria’s first economic boom ended. During the boom of 1876, a quarter million worth of quicksilver was produced; four years later, production had decreased to just over $6,000. A devastating fire in 1889 virtually ended the mercury business and Cambria settled into a quiet dairy community.

Today, the primary economic activity of Cambria is tourism. The area has impressive rocky cliffs and beautiful beaches. There are many vacation rental homes, inns and hotels with several beach access points and benches to allow for sea life observation and beach combing. The beach is home to various sea life such as seals, sea otters, tide pools filled with sea anemones, sea urchins, starfish, crabs, snails and more. “Moonstone Beach” received its name from all the moonstones that wash ashore there.

East West Ranch (now call Fiscalini Ranch Preserve), is a large 430–acre open space stretching over 1 mile along the ocean cliffs. Years ago the property was purchased by a Japanese developer who tried to have a home development approved, but was shut down by the Coastal Commission. The property went up for sale and thru public and private funding of over $1 million raised by the small community of Cambria, it will remain open space and recreational land forever.