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Beeks Place
From Dirtopia, The Off-Road Encyclopedia
Near the North end of Main Divide Road in the Cleveland National Forest is Beek’s Place. This is an old homestead originally used as a Fire lookout during fire seasons in decades past, now lonely and unused for many years. You will find a couple of buildings existing and almost all of them are in a miserable state. Their crumbling structure scrawled with graffiti bear testimony to the numerous vandals who have ruined this place.
If you move further down, you can view a couple of odd looking antenna-like structures set up in 1941 as Fire lookout towers(Why they have Crows nests instead of Antena mounts). The hillside behind these throws up interesting artifacts like this cistern with a square opening on the ground, built as a bunker to escape a wild fire(not actually a cistern). A peek into it will reveal that it is not too deep. However be wary of climbing into it, there may be Rattlesnakes or other wild life taking up residence.
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History
Beeks Place is still owned by the Beek family who runs the Balboa Ferry. Joseph A. Beek took over the Balboa Ferry in 1919 and became interested in real estate a few years later. He bought 680 acres in the area for $3 or $4 per acre. He gave up building on the land in the 1930's because it was too steep.
He still loved the area, so he continued to visit it often. He planted dozens of pine species and discovered a spring. He built cisterns to capture the water and a pump to carry it off for his family. Joseph Beek also built wind-powered generators to run the pumps and provide electricity to the remote location.
Joseph Beek died in 1968, but the family continued to use the cabin into the 80's, but stopped maintaining the structure due to continued vandalism. [1]
Maps and GPS Coordinates
Beeks Place Coordinates: 33.820606° -117.638742°
- Satellite image from Google Maps, Windows Live Local, WikiMapia
- Street map from Google Maps, or Yahoo! Maps, or Windows Live Local
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
- Find nearby Geocaching locations
- Find this location with Google Earth
Conditions and Closures
It is always wise to check with the Cleveland National Forest to make sure that your trail is open.
Cleveland National Forest Contact Information
- Cleveland NF Current Conditions and Closures
- Trabuco Ranger District - (951) 736-1811
- Palomar Ranger District - (760) 788-0250
- Descanso Ranger District - (619) 445-6235
- Headquarters - (858) 673-6180
