Sightseers riding horses or carriages along the 17-Mile Drive sometimes stopped at Pebble Beach to pick up agate and other stones polished smooth by the waves, and they commented on a few unusual tree formations known as the Witch Tree and the Ostrich Tree-the latter formed by two trees leaning on each other. The drive was offered as a pleasure excursion to hotel guests, and was intended to attract wealthy buyers of large and scenic residential plots on PIC land. The hotel was the starting and finishing point for 17-Mile Drive, (originally called the 18-mile Drive by hotel operators). Within short order, the area became a tourist destination with the building of the Hotel Del Monte. By 1892, the PIC laid out a scenic road that they called the 17-Mile Drive, meandering along the beaches and among the forested areas between Monterey and Carmel. In 1880, Jacks sold the land to the Pacific Improvement Company (PIC), a consortium of The Big Four railroad barons: Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Collis Huntington and Leland Stanford. Jacks leased the land to the 'China Man Hop Company', a small village with a population of about 30 Chinese fishermen living in shacks built upon the rocky shoreline. At the time, the area was called 'Stillwater Cove'. Ownership passed several times until 1862 when the property was purchased at auction for 12 cents an acre by David Jacks. She sold the 4000 acre property for $500 in 1846. By 1840 the area now called Pebble Beach was a rancho left to widow Carmen Garcia Barreto Maderiaga Maria by her husband. In 1602 the Monterey Peninsula was mapped by Spanish explorers.

The 17-Mile Drive is a 17-mile (27 km)-long scenic loop having five primary entrances - the main highway entrance at California State Route 1, and entrances in Carmel and Pacific Grove. Like the community, the majority of 17-Mile Drive is owned and operated by the Pebble Beach Corporation. Inside this community, nonresidents have to pay a toll to use the road.

The drive serves as the main road through the gated community of Pebble Beach. 17-Mile Drive is a scenic road through Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula in California, much of which hugs the Pacific coastline and passes famous golf courses, mansions and scenic attractions, including the Lone Cypress, Bird Rock and the 5,300-acre Del Monte Forest of Monterey Cypress trees.

17 mile drive bike