People were here long before any of that. The Costanoan, or Ohlone, lived on Monterey Bay for thousands of years before the first ship arrived. A Spanish expedition under Sebastián Vizcaíno sailed in in 1602 and named the harbor for the Count of Monte Rey; the name stuck, though no one came back to settle for another 168 years. Then on June 3, 1770, Gaspar de Portolá and Father Junípero Serra came ashore and founded the presidio and mission that became the town — the mission itself moving south to neighboring Carmel the following year.
From the room where California wrote its constitution to the canneries that fed the bay, Monterey is the original California — adobe walls, cannery tin, and the deep blue water that ran through all of it. Our Monterey designs gather that layered history into wearable form. From California's first capital to the Sardine Capital of the World: wear a little of Monterey's original-California history.
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.
