In 1971, the Supervisor of the Willow Springs Station, and original road warrior, Rock Knocker’s boss, wrote an 11 page paper in which he describes how areas along Highway One, particularly slides, got their names. This one was originally call Big Slide. This is what Don Harlan wrote:

Big Slide – is where over 250,000 cubic yards dumped itself in 1952, or so. It closed the road for over a month and was more fun to watch than television could ever be! When the 4 D-8s quit at night you couldn’t tell whaat had been done. It kept on coming. No one ever figured out why it happened in a dry August or why it quit either. Residue from this slide, in later years, caused me to be unable to report for my first days work for the State. I couldn’t get through to Willow Springs. Papa Hudson let me get away with it and didn’t dock me!