Point Lobos (CA) (Images of America)

For more than a century the incomparable beauty of Point Lobos has drawn admirers from around the world. The jagged rock outcroppings, driftwood-strewn beaches, and silhouetted cypress trees, twisted grotesquely by the wind, were favorite subjects for photographers Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. Point Lobos is also a favorite playground for seals, sea lions, and otters, and migrating grey whales pass just offshore. Barking sea lions reminded 18th-century Spanish explorers of sea wolves, in their tongue, lobos marinos, and so they named it Point of the Sea Wolves. Now a California State Reserve, Point Lobos draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.

Co-authors Monica Hudson, a Point Lobos resident and former interpreter for California State Parks, and researcher Suzanne Wood, a docent at Point Lobos, have created a beguiling pictorial history of the famous landmark. Drawing from the collections of the Carmel and Monterey public libraries, the family archives of the Allan and Kodani families, and other private collections, they illustrate that history from the 19th century to modern times.