“Escaping almost miraculously from the destruction of native landscape values that had occurred around it  passing from owner to owner who regarded it lightly –once in the free-and-easy early days of the Mexican regime  tradition says  lost as the stake in a game of cards –site of a whaling station  shipment point for a coal mine  laid out on paper as a townsite with a harsh gridiron of streets  grazed over by cattle  in parts occasionally burned –this rare and exceptional landscape was finally passed into the trusteeship of the State of California  fortunately held most of the essentially primitive character that had lured increasing thousands to it