Big Creek Reserve Director's Collection

This collection, created by former reserve director John Smiley, contains administrative files for the Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve (LHBC). These include correspondence, reference materials, reprints, data, and reserve use waivers. These files provide insight into the establishment of the reserve, and its relationships with both the Devil’s Creek Flat inholders, who owned the Big Creek property before The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Save-The-Redwoods League purchased it for the NRS in the late 1970s, and Circle M Ranch, which operates as an extension of the reserve.

In particular, this collection includes: (1) files on the California Department of Fish & Game (now Fish and Wildlife) including agreements for animal take, (2) files on the California Coastal Commission, (3) files on the California Department of Transportation and Highway 1, (4) reports concerning Monterey County demographics, (5) letters and memos concerning steelhead trout fishing in Big Creek, (6) files on former owners and donors, including contact information and private property access policies, (7) landscape photographs of Big Creek, (8) management planning documents dating from the 1970s, (9) discussions of fire policy, including applications to the US Forest Service (USFS) for prescribed burns, (10) documents related to a 1984 LHBC site assessment, (11) files on Limekiln, French Camp, Baldwin Ranch, Circle M Ranch, the Prentiss property, and other properties in the area, including evaluations for potential inclusion in the reserve, information on archeological surveys, land changes, proposed developments, and correspondence between Kenneth S. Norris and David Packard regarding the Circle M property, (12) memoirs and personal histories of Big Creek, including accounts by Priscilla Nesbitt and Penelope Sky, published in 1999 and titled “The Big Creek Story,” (13) correspondence between the LHBC and Big Sur Historical Society, which funded some archeological studies at the reserve, (14) Copies of field notes by John Peabody Harrington and others, (15) historical subject files on diverse topics including place names, local history, Esselen Native American groups, the history of Circle M Ranch and its former owner Edward S. Moore, folk songs of the Big Sur Coast, discussions about the transfer of state to federal land in the Big Sur Area, (16) research reference files on diverse topics including endangered species, monitoring, marine research, prescribed burns, weather and climate, geology, and archaeology, as well as clippings, article reprints, theses, dissertations, correspondence, applications, proposals, and data, and (17) annual reports from 1988-97.

As of 2012, an additional series, which includes some active files, was held in the reserve director’s office. This series includes: (1) maintenance schedules dating from 1979, (2), TNC plans by, from the 1980s, to develop interpretive trails, (3) manager's reports and management plans ,(4) permanent legal records, such as property deeds and cooperative agreements between the NRS and the Save-The-Redwoods League, (5) subject files covering the expansion of reserve facilities and property, mitigation activities, and the California Coastal Commission’s 1978 attempt to create a Resource Protection Zone, (6) correspondence among the NRS, UC Santa Cruz, the Save-The-Redwoods League, and several local landowners, and (7) records of Big Creek advisory committee meetings, including some minutes and notes from 1979-2008.