Monterey County Genealogy and History

[monterey]

Old Washington Hotel, Monterey, First Hotel in California

The Old Washington Hotel was California's first hotel and stood on the northwest corner of Washington and Pearl streets. The building was erected in 1832 and for a few years was the private residence of Don Enrique Montenegro.

The hotel, which was fifty feet in width and over two hundred feet in length was built of adobe in 1840, the adobe being obtained from the rear of the San Carlos Church. The trees which were cut down to make way for the building were used to support the roof. The building would accommodate over a hundred lodgers.

A nest of gamblers, fifty in number, arrived in Monterey, May 12, 1847, and opened up a "monte" game in the Washington Hotel. Then Alcalde Walter Colton took a file of soldiers and surrounded the place, arresting the whole outfit. He took them into the bar, told them about the schoolhouse he was building, and fined them $20 each. The proprietor was fined $100 - which made a nice sum toward the building of Colton Hall. After the discovery of gold, it became the gambling headquarters of the town.

In 1849 during the Constitutional Convention the hotel was leased for $1200 per month, its rates being then $200 a month without board.

It is at this site where, at ten o'clock on the evening of June 18, 1856, Mr. Lewis Belcher was shot while sitting at the bar, a victim of the infamous Belcher-Roach vendetta murders.

The Old Washington Hotel was torn down in 1914-15, it too becoming a victim of progress.
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Claire Martin
CAGenWeb Monterey County Coordinator
http://www.cagenweb.com/monterey/

[npeden]

Hi

Interesting to see the hotel and read its construction date of 1832. I had thought that Thomas Larkin's home may have been the first two story adobe. It was built between 1833-1835 according to books on Larkin and Cooper.

I do part time tours for Monterey Historic Park and appreciate anytime I can get "facts" correct or at least be able to speak more tenatively, as in "some believe that the first two story adobe may have been..."

Does anyone know anything differently?

Thanks,
Nancy
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Nancy Peden, MA
Monterey, CA
www.livedlearning.net