Historic Monterey

1. Custom House

Monterey, CA

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The Custom House is an adobe structure in the traditional Mexican style, located between Custom House Plaza and Fisherman's Wharf. It was built for the purpose of the collection of taxes imposed on foreign merchants by the Mexican government from 1821 to 1846. The current building as it stands is the product of extensive renovation upon an earlier building that was constructed perhaps in the early 1820s. Thomas O. Larkin, first and only U.S. consul to Mexican Alta California, carried out the renovation in 1841. However, it is likely that there were many other buildings in the vicinity of the Custom House because of its opportune location near Monterey's prime landing beach. There were drawings made of the area during the 1792 Vancouver expedition, which illustrate another building in this area, and 1991 archaeological investigations revealed an earlier foundation immediately to the south of the existing Custom House building. Not only did Larkin renovate the building in 1846, but made improvements on the rough wharf. Later landfill over the decades has pushed the shoreline back form the Custom House, but initially it stood virtually right up against the water. This new expanded shoreline was used when train tracks were laid between the building and the water when the railroad was extended from Monterey to Pacific Grove in 1889. In the early 1900s, the Native Sons of the Golden West again restored the building. Custom House has been acknowledged as the oldest government building in California, and holds the title of "State Historic Monument No. 1." Inside Custom House there are exhibition rooms which display goods which were brought into Mexican-era California by trading sea captains and the commerce known as the "hide and tallow" trade. The Museum Store—run by the Old Monterey Preservation Society—sells reproductions of typical goods from toys to bygone household items, as well as books that celebrate Monterey and California's past as well as discuss the future of their cultural and natural resources. Content Provided By: Historic Monterey