By Keith Pendleton
What do Cayucos, Cuyama and Pismo Beach have in Common? Nomenclature.
How did the locales get their names? Yes, two of the communities are beach towns on the SLO Coast, peppered with surfboards and Volkswagens as if near-mirror images of the 1960s.
Intriguingly, their names have similar roots. The name Cayucos is a Spanish word for kayaks or canoes that were used by the Chumash people. When Spanish explorers landed on the coast above Morro Bay they saw the dug-out-tree boats the natives used and named the local area after the new word.
The story is similar for the Pismo Beach area only because of the canoe. The Chumash tribes were sea-faring peoples. The canoes in the Pismo area were smeared with the tar (Pizmo) found on the beach to make them more seaworthy. (Some historical Pismo accounts claim the word means “place of fish.”)
Several place name stories all over California are disputed or have secondary reasoning to their names. Some name derivations are never settled or only evolve when older-sourced information is found.
Pismo is also the name of a clam species in the area. That gives the Pismo name something in common with Cuyama and New Cuyama, unincorporated ranching areas in the far southeast reaches of San Luis Obispo County spilling over into Santa Barbara County. Cuyama is a Spanish corruption of the Native American word for clam. (Whether the word is Chumash or Salinian is in dispute.)
Places
• Arroyo Grande gets its name from the Spanish Land Grant of 1842, and its English language translation is large creek (grande arroyo).
Atascadero is a Spanish translation of ‘hindrance of a miry bog’ and is derived from the name of an 1839 land grant.
• Avila Beach is named for the Rancho Miguelito land grant awarded to Miguel Avila, a corporal at Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolsa.
• Bee Rock in North County gains its name from a large boulder in the area said to be the world’s largest beehive in the late nineteenth century when it was settled by the Langenbeck and Allen families in 1861 and 1882 respectively.
• Cambria’s Twin Villages name is derived from the Latin name for the Kingdom of Wales, on the island of Great Briton, United Kingdom. The north Central Coast area wanted to be called Santa Rosa, for the creek that supplied most of the area’s water, but that California name was already taken. To avoid confusion the post office changed the name to San Simeon for the other creek supplying water to the area. The townsfolk would not accept that name and when Rosaville was turned down due to probable confusion with Roseville, near Sacramento, the Nic-name Slabtown referred to the area. It was then suggested that the villages be named for Cambria County, Pennsylvania. The PA town was named for Wales/Cambria, UK. Many local landmarks still retain the name Santa Rosa.
• Cholame takes its name from the Rancho of the same name established by Robert Edgar Jack and William Welles Hollister. The land was sold to the Hearst Corporation in 1966. The word is a rough translation for a Chumash or Salinan term meaning “beautiful one”.
• Creston, 10 miles east of Atascadero, is named for Calvin J. Cressy, a local landowner.
• Edna, in San Luis Obispo’s zip, was founded by Edgar Steele, a dairy farmer. The town of about 193 was later named Maxwellton by Lynford Maxwell who sub-divided land in the area. The citizens later renamed it Edna.
• El Paso de Robles is of Spanish origin which roughly translates into English as “Oak Pass.”
• Garden Farms was developed in 1918 on land purchased from Rancho Santa Margarita by Edward Gardner Lewis, who planned for the farms to supply produce to Atascadero. The recession after World War I intervened, and the plan failed.
The metropolis of Ground Squirrel Hollow is also in the Paso Robles ZIP code. The 766-voting age populated rural area is named for a hollow, a trail and a community services district.
• Grover Beach was originally named Grover City for Dwight William Grover, a large area landowner. It was renamed Grover Beach after voter approval in 1992. ªSome insist it was for marketing reasons; are you more attracted to a city or a beach?)
• Harmony is ironically named for the peace that broke out after a feud between farmers trying to operate a dairy cooperative. The mayhem included a murder. When the feud was settled the Creamery Association members decided to call the cooperative Harmony Valley Creamery. Population statistics are hard to come by since the hamlet post office closed. Harmony lost its post office in April of 2008 and census data was initially transferred to San Simeon. A jurisdiction within San Luis Obispo County lists the population as 21 in a report about growth on the north SLO coast. The official Harmony road-sign along Hwy 1 lists 18, but that is seemingly more for marketing purposes. Should that the road sign ever get changed, all hell would break loose for the marketing folks. All the postcards, art and brochures would have to be tossed and reprinted. But wait, the art, now flawed will go up in value like a mis-minted coin or a mistake in a postage stamp imprint! The Cambria Chamber of Commerce has adopted Harmony for promotional purposes.
• Huasna Township was named for a Chumash village with a possible name meaning the three-cornered tule, a bulrush plant. According to Chumash stories, the path to the sky is located somewhere in the Huasna region.
• Los Berros, Spanish for watercress is featured as a neighborhood in Nipomo.
• Los Osos or Canada de Los Osos, translates as “valley of the bears.” Los Osos, along with Baywood Park, applies to the area south of Morro Bay and west of San Luis Obispo. Another neighborhood is Cuesta-by-the-Sea. Montano de Oro State Park lies to the south. The combined neighborhoods sometimes use the mascot nickname Baywood Bears which seems a good compromise for an identity crisis or tug-of-war by different historical factions in the greater community.
• Morro [Rock] Spanish for “a crown or dome-shaped rock,” thus the city gets its name from the prominent rock at the entrance to the bay of the same name.
Nacimiento is the name of a tributary of the Salinas River and of the reservoir above the convergence. The name is Spanish for calve or birth, source or nativity, rise, dawn or formation. Sources conflict how the name came to be applied to the Nacimiento River, though the naming of a land formation at the headwaters is the most likely alternative. The populated area includes the Communities in the far north of San Luis Obispo County and extreme southern section of Monterey County. It is home to a set of neighborhoods in transition from recreational houses to full-time communities. Lake Nacimiento is owned by the Monterey County Water District though land surrounding the lake is privately as well as publicly owned. Villages surrounding the reservoir include Oak Shores on the northwest and Heritage Ranch on the southeast. Bee Rock is a small village between Nacimiento and San Antonio lakes. The entire area is often collectively referred to as Nacimiento Lake for the drive heading towards Paso Robles.
Nipomo is in the area that serves several communities near the border with Santa Barbara County. Other village names include Blacklake, Bromela, Callender, Garrett, Los Berros and Woodlands. Nipomo is a Spanish term for foot of the house or foothill.
• Pismo Beach gets its name from the tar along its shore as mentioned above. It includes Shell Beach as well as Port San Luis named for the Spanish Mission in San Luis Obispo. The port was the largest petroleum port in the world during its heyday in the early to mid-twentieth century. The Port San Luis Lighthouse was a major shipping aid until it was automated in 1969.
• Pozo was named by George Washington Lingo, Esq., “a well-known citizen” who proposed the name for the post office because the village is in a hole-like basin, informally known as the San Jose Valley. Pozo means “well” or “hole” in Spanish. The former Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach from San Luis Obispo to the California Central Valley and Bakersfield ran through downtown Pozo. There was gold-rush activity in Pozo Creek and the La Panza hills east of town. The post office operated from 1872 to 1942. The old stage route was improved, named Highway 178 and ran to Ridgecrest near Highway 395. In the 1940s HWY 178 was re-routed about ten miles north and renamed Highway 58. There were three schools in the vicinity. The post offices and school districts merged with Santa Margarita and students were bussed to SM and Atascadero. Without traffic and services, the town declined to its current half-dozen buildings. A boutique hotel company plans to re-open the famed Pozo Saloon.
• SLO was founded September 1, 1772, by Father (Alameda Padre) Junípero Serra. The fifth mission in the Franciscan chain was named after Saint Louis, the Bishop of Toulouse, France. The city took its name from the religious outpost.
San Simeon was named after Saint Simon and Ragged Point was named for its jagged coastline.
• Santa Margarita is named after Saint Margaret of Cortona, an Italian saint who lived from 1247–1297. The name was first applied to the Asistencia, a sub-mission of San Luis Obispo de Tolosa which became a key source of food for the SLO mission. The road over the Cuesta Grade between SLO and SM was known as The Padre Trail, serving to connect the SLO mission with the sub-mission and later the mission in San Miguel.
• Shandon was named for a town outside California featured in Harper’s Magazine in 1891.
• San Simeon (for Saint Simon) and Ragged Point (named for its jagged coastline) areas are north of namesake San Simeon Creek.
• Simmler is a rural area about six miles from California Valley. Its name derives from the original Swedish family to settle the area in the late 1800s.
•Templeton is located within the former Rancho Paso de Robles Mexican land grant and was founded in 1886. Chauney Hatch Phillips of the West Coast Land Company sent R.R. Harris to survey 160 acres (0.65 km2) set aside for a town to exist south of Paso Robles as part of the company’s larger purchase of 63,000 acres. The land was to be laid out in business and residential lots with 5–12-acre parcels. It was to be named “Crocker” after vice president of the Southern Pacific Railroad, Charles F. Crocker. The planned namesake, however, chose to name the town “Templeton,” after his 2-year-old son, Charles Templeton Crocker.
• Whitley Gardens was named for California developer Hobert Johnstone Whitley (1847-1931). The ‘Father of Hollywood’ bought thousands of acres of land east of Paso Robles to develop his 140th and last city project. Another community named for him is the center of Hollywood Hills, Whitley Heights, within Los Angeles City limits.
