San Simeon (Spanish: San Simeón, meaning "St. Simon") is a village and Census-designated place on the Pacific coast of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Its position along State Route 1 is about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, each of those cities being roughly away. A key feature of the area is Hearst Castle, a hilltop mansion built for William Randolph Hearst in the early 20th century that is now a tourist attraction. The area is also home to a large northern elephant seal rookery, known as the Piedras Blancas rookery, located north of San Simeon on Highway 1. The area is also home to an invasive zebra population of slightly over 100. History Humans first settled the local area at least 11,000 years ago. Prehistorically, the local area was inhabited by the Chumash people, including a large village south of San Simeon at Morro Creek. In 1542 the coastal exploration of Juan Cabrillo discovered the bay and named it the Bay of Sardines. The first European land exploration of Alta California, the Spanish Portolà expedition, traveled northwest along the coast in September 1769. On September 11–12, the party passed the future location of San Simeon. At Ragged Point, which is about past San Simeon, the party turned inland across the Santa Lucia Range. San Simeon was founded as an asistencia ("sub-mission") to Mission San Miguel Arcángel, founded in 1797 and located to the east across the Santa Lucia Range. The Bay of San Simeon is mentioned in the records of San Miguel Mission for 1830. San Simeon was named for Rancho San Simeon, although the town-site is actually north of that rancho, on the former Rancho Piedra Blanca, a Mexican land grant given in 1840 to José de Jesús Pico. In 1865, Pico sold part of the rancho to George Hearst, the father of William Randolph Hearst. The first Europeans to settle in the immediate area near the bay of San Simeon were Portuguese shore whalers under the command of Captain Joseph Clark (born Machado) from the Cape Verde Islands, around 1864. In 1869, Captain Clark built a wharf near the point for his whaling station. A small community grew near the 1869 wharf, but the waves near the wharf were too high, and the wharf was abandoned. In 1878, Hearst built a new wharf, and the small community moved near the new wharf. A general