The Royal Presidio and the First Capital

You are standing near the birthplace of Spanish California. On the third of June, seventeen seventy, Gaspar de Portola and the Franciscan father Junipero Serra founded a presidio, a royal fort, on this spot for the crown of Spain. Within a few years Monterey became the capital of Alta California, and by the arrival of Governor Felipe de Neve in seventeen seventy seven it governed both Alta and Baja California together.

The chapel you see, now called San Carlos Cathedral, is the sole survivor of that first settlement. The wooden church burned, and between seventeen ninety one and seventeen ninety five workers raised these sandstone walls, designed in Mexico City and built with Native labor. It is considered the oldest stone building in California and the longest continually operating church on a single site in the state.

In eighteen eighteen, when the Argentine privateer Hippolyte de Bouchard sacked and burned Monterey, this chapel was one of the few structures left standing. After Mexico won independence, Monterey remained the capital under a new flag. The little church became a full cathedral in nineteen sixty seven, and it holds services still, more than two centuries on.