California's First Theatre

The California First Theatre features a long, low profile with thick walls built from sun-dried adobe bricks and white lime plaster. Jack Swan, an English sailor, opened this building in eighteen forty-seven as a saloon and lodging house for sailors. He eventually added a stage where soldiers from the nearby Presidio performed plays for the public. The building remains as the oldest theater in the state, holding the original scripts and old-fashioned footlights used by those amateur actors during the gold rush era.