Historic Monterey

8. California's First Theater

Monterey, CA

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This wooden structure is California's first theater, and was built in 1845 by Jack Swan, an English sailor of Scottish ancestry who settled in Monterey two years earlier. It was constructed out of lumber that was salvaged from a shipwreck. The building was used as Swan's home and a tavern, and he later added an adobe-lodging house in 1846. A year later, Colonel Stevenson's 1st new York Volunteers disbanded in Monterey and the former Army officers were able to persuade Swan to build on a small stage. Using whale-oil lamps, wooden benches, footlights of candles, and blue and red blankets as curtains, they became a functioning theater and in 1850 began producing melodramas, which were very successful. Tickets sold for $5 each, and the first night's receipts totaled $500. Whaling men also used the First Theatre in later years as a lodging house, but after Swan's death in 1896 the building fell into disrepair. In 1906, the California Historic Landmarks League purchased the building and passed it along to the State of California. Content Provided By: Historic Monterey