Colton Hall Museum and Jail

The pale yellow stone walls and the square white clock tower belong to Colton Hall. Reverend Walter Colton arrived in Monterey in eighteen forty-six as the American alcalde, or mayor, and decided the town needed a proper schoolhouse. He funded the building by taxing local gambling dens and fines from drunkards. When California delegates gathered here in eighteen forty-nine to write the state constitution, they found the building unfinished, so they sat on wooden crates to debate the future of the state.