Harmony Headlands State Park preserves an undeveloped parcel of Pacific coastline between Point Estero to the south and Natalie’s Cove to the north, about 7 miles (11 km) west-northwest of Cayucos and 3 miles (5 km) south-southeast of Harmony, California. Established in 2003 and named after the nearby community, the park encompasses 748 acres (303 ha) and includes a network of official and unofficial hiking trails through marine terrace grassland to the edge of steep bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The marine terraces of Point Estero are elevated platforms composed of Franciscan Complex rocks shaped by wave erosion and subsequently raised above sea level by tectonic activity and fluctuations in global sea levels. The rocks forming Harmony Headlands are mostly sandstone—fine to coarse-grained arkose containing foraminifera and pollen—dating from the Late Cretaceous, roughly 100 million to 66 million years ago.

Human occupation along California’s Central Coast dates back at least 10,000 years. The native people, ancestors of today’s Salinan and Chumash, lived along the coastal bluffs and further inland, traveling seasonally along stream drainages to exploit food, shelter and tool resources. The Spanish mission period began in 1769 with the Portolá expedition. Drawn into the mission system, native peoples succumbed rapidly to diseases to which they had no immunity; survivors became laborers who built the missions and later worked the ranchos. Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, and the missions were secularized in 1833, with their lands granted to individuals. Rancho San Geronimo, which encompassed part of what is now Harmony Headlands State Park, was granted to Rafael José Serapio Villavicencio (later shortened to Villa), a cattle rancher. His son Roberto continued ranching until the mid-1860s. In 1883 the ranch was acquired by Robert Logan, who sold it in 1901 to Joseph Righetti, a Swiss dairyman, who in turn sold it in 1912 to Armando Storni. The Storni family operated a dairy there until the mid-1960s. An investment firm purchased the ranch in 1975 for subdivision, but the plans did not materialize; in 2003 the American Land Conservancy bought the acreage and deeded it to California State Parks.

Harmony was founded in 1869 around several dairy ranches and a creamery, but the operation changed hands repeatedly because of rivalries among owners. In 1907, owners and ranchers settled their disagreements and adopted the town’s present name as a symbol of their truce. Rising grazing fees and dairy industry consolidation led to the closure of the creamery around 1955, and the town’s population declined until the 1970s, when it was rediscovered by young counter-culture Californians seeking a rural lifestyle in which to practice traditional crafts away from urban pressures. Since then, Harmony has experienced cycles of prosperity and neglect. A small cadre of artisans and businesses keeps it alive, with shops selling art, locally blown glass and pottery. The town is also home to Harmony Cellars, a winery that opened in 1989 and produced around 6,000 cases in 2006. In 2014, Harmony was purchased by Alan and Rebecca Vander Horst from the Mehdizadeh family, who had owned the 2.5-acre town for 17 years; the new owners plan to restore and preserve its historic buildings. Read more here and here. Explore more of Harmony Headlands and Point Estero here: