Monterey, CA -18 February 2018. The Monterey State Historic Park is composed of a number of significant historic houses and buildings interspersed throughout Old Monterey.

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Find out what's currently open at Monterey State Historic Park, grab a free map and buy tickets for guided walking tours inside this 1847 adobe building, where fascinatingly in-depth exhibits cover the state’s early Spanish, Mexican and American eras. Walking tours run at 10:30am, 12:30pm & 2pm Thursday to Sunday.

Nearby are some of the state park’s historical highlights, including an old whaling station and California’s first theater. A 10-minute walk south is the old Monterey jail featured in John Steinbeck’s novel Tortilla Flat.

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Nearby Monterey attractions

1. Monterey State Historic Park

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Old Monterey is home to an extraordinary assemblage of 19th-century brick and adobe buildings administered as a state park and linked by a 2-mile self…

2. Dali17

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Escaping WWII in Europe, Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí lived and worked in the Monterey and Carmel area in the 1940s. Comprising over 300 Dalí…

3. Custom House

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In 1822, a newly independent Mexico ended the Spanish trade monopoly and stipulated that any traders bringing goods to Alta (Upper) California must first…

4. California's First Theater

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Originally built as a lodging house and tavern in 1847, and used as a theater from 1850, this building is currently closed for renovation.

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Open to the public, this fine adobe structure was originally built in 1847 by Scottish settler, David Wight.

6. Presidio of Monterey Museum

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On the grounds of the original Spanish fort, this specialized museum (of interest only to history buffs) looks at Monterey’s history from a military…

7. Colton Hall

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Peek inside brick Colton Hall, where California’s first constitutional convention took place in 1849. Once the capitol of Alta (Upper) California, today…

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Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson came to Monterey in 1879 to court his wife-to-be, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne. This building, then the French Hotel…