But Monterey's deeper claim is older and grander: this is where California began. Before Sacramento, before the gold, Monterey was the capital — first of Spanish Alta California from 1777, then of Mexican California, the one seat of government the territory kept under three flags. And in 1849, when California was about to become a state, the delegates met here at Colton Hall to write its first constitution. For most of a century the business of California was done in this town of whitewashed adobe on the edge of a deep blue bay, and Monterey collected the territory's firsts almost by default — the first theater, the first brick house, and the first printing press and newspaper in California all began here.
South of town the land turns wild at Point Lobos, the granite-and-cypress headland often called the crown jewel of California's state parks, where sea otters raft in the kelp and the surf breaks white against the rocks. Monterey Bay itself is a drowned submarine canyon — deep, cold, and astonishingly rich with life — which is why the old Hovden cannery at the end of the Row was reborn in 1984 as a place to look at the sea instead of empty it. The same water that built the canneries now draws people to watch whales and otters in it.
Why People Visit Monterey
Monterey rewards visitors who want the original California — the first capital, a town of 18th-century adobes, and a deep, wild bay. People come for the Path of History and Cannery Row, for Point Lobos and the marine sanctuary, and for an easy, scenic stretch of Central Coast where Spanish-colonial heritage and a famous waterfront sit side by side.
