Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
POST RANCH INN
.
,
When the Spanish explorers arrived in the Big Sur area, they discovered the Costanoan Indians.
Having lived there peacefully for several thousand years, the Costanoans were perhaps too friendly
with the newcomers. Associating with them in their missions and working for them in their agri-
cultural pursuits led to the introduction of new diseases.
Smallpox, measles, and other diseases caused tremendous loss of life among the native popula-
tions and, of course, more settlers arrived. Eventually, the Indians were greatly outnumbered; when
their land was taken away by the new state of California in 1850 and 1851, the treaties they signed
left them with little to show for their existence in Central California.
The Indians held small portions of the vast land holdings they had originally inhabited. Most
of the rest of their land was taken first by the Spaniards who became Mexicans and then by the
European settlers. Big Sur remained relatively devoid of inhabitants until the 1860s, when the first
American pioneers arrived on the scene. Following the rush to the gold fields up north, settlers
began to spread out over other parts of the state in search of land.
William Brainard Post, an 18-year-old from Connecticut, arrived in Monterey in 1848 by ship.
An enthusiastic explorer and entrepreneur, Post spent years along the California coast hunting griz-
zly bears and deer. He later turned from buckskin hunter to businessman, opening the first grain
warehouse in Moss Landing and the first butcher shop in Castroville.
Post married Anselma Onesimo, who was of Costanoan descent, in 1850. They had five chil-
dren and the family needed a place to grow. Perhaps with the encouragement of his new bride and
because of her ancestry, he made a claim on 160 acres of land in Big Sur. They opened one of the
region's first homesteads. With the help of his sons, he built a cabin that would remind him of his
own roots in Connecticut. The red New England-style house, which is a registered historical land-
mark, still stands today along scenic Highway 1, across from the entrance to Post Ranch Inn.
The Post family took up his entrepreneurial ways, raising cattle and hogs and exporting apples
from their prolific orchard. Their youngest son, Joe, married a neighbor of Cherokee descent, and
harbored the same homesteading instincts as his parents. After buying up numerous claims from
both of their families, he eventually accumulated nearly 1,500 acres, including the area of the Post
Ranch Inn.
Together Joe and his wife ran their extensive land holdings and acquired substantial portions
of the wilderness around Big Sur. Their son Bill continued the family entrepreneurial tradition,
attacking various opportunities and working as a cowboy and rancher. On one trip where he was
