Stacy Trevenon

Kings Mountain (Images of America: California) Stacy Trevenon

Rising 2,000 feet above the rural San Mateo County countryside, Kings Mountain rests atop the redwood-ribbed backbone of the California Coastal Mountain Range. Despite inhospitable terrain, its forests lured Spanish padres who envisioned a chain of missions along the California coast. The community grew as its stately Sequoia sempervirens toppled before the influx of sawmills that sprang up in the 1850s. Named for early entrepreneurs Frank and Honora King, the mountain's story features rough-and-tumble sawyers, genteel dairy farmers, ghost towns, subdivisions, summer cabins, schools, and storied hermits. The celebrated annual art fair began in 1963 to raise funds for fire protection and grew into a nationally respected event that draws thousands.