He stands on the crest of the coastal mountain range. Horizon to horizon, he can watch the sun rise and set. He is Blanco Diablo, mountain man and miner.

In the early days, Blanco helped build the twisting perilous highway that winds its way along the westward edge of California.

In the early days, he helped build Rainbow Bridge—using limestone mined nearby. Blanco Diablo (Kenneth Melville) was the courageous worker who let himself be held by skyhooks 280 feet above the canyon where Mill Creek joins the Pacific Ocean. Few workers lasted a week on that bridge. Blanco worked 10 hours a day, seven days a week for 11 months. Little by little, he helped put together the final piece of the long puzzle of treacherous highway. that leads to Big Sur. The bridge and creek were later renamed Bixby.

In the early days, Blanco helped build the famous Hearst Castle. He worked first as a truck driver, then as a carpenter. He laid the foundation for the cottages on the steep hillsides. He shoveled 24 yards of dirt per day. No road led to the Castle site—only a trail marked the way then. For shelter, Blanco pitched an old army tent on the site where Hearst Castle now stands

He also worked on the old San Carlos Hotel that stood as a Monterey landmark for over 50 years. Though Blanco lost one eye in a work-related accident, the other is keen enough to serve as two....

Blanco lives on a mining claim in US Forest Service land, but he is older than the Forest Service itself. In exchange for living there, as miners for decades have done, he mines for gold and other precious metals. He has to do assessment work every year to show how much mineral he takes from each mine. As with a farmer's crop, some years are better than others....

Around the turn of the century, a gold and silver boomtown called Manchester occupied the land near Blanco's claims. It had a population of between 300 and 600 residents, nearly all of them miners and miner's families. Today, no trace of it appears. Fire destroyed the entire town and it never was rebuilt. Few miners remained in that old Los Burros Mining District. Blanco's family did. Blanco grew up a miner. His father was a miner. They panned for gold, dug for it, blasted and tunneled for it....