Monterey focuses on ‘most historic’ role in 2006

Monterey. It’s wonderful for golf and scenery, whale watching, jack cheese, strolling along the wharf or Cannery Row – and history, especially history in 2006 when a series of events makes it an extra special destination.

Monterey is the most historic and best preserved city in the western United States and it has the facts to prove it. For example:

… Vizcaino landed in Monterey in 1602 and claimed California for Spain – almost 20 years before the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock.

… Monterey was California’s first capital, becoming the capital of Upper and Lower California under Spanish rule in 1774.

… It has the best preserved collection of original historic buildings west of Williamsburg – and most of them are on their original sites.

… In one of the most historic – and little known events in American history – Commodore Sloat landed in Monterey harbor in 1846, an act that led to California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and part of Colorado – 600,000 square miles in all – becoming part of the United States.

And that’s not even mentioning the Argentine brigands that sacked the city in 1818 or Richard Henry Dana extolling the “pretty” city in two years before the Mast in 1835 or California’s first newspaper, theatre or American schoolhouse, theatre or fort.

Monterey celebrates its past with a variety of annual events and a “path of history” which meandes through colorful adobes and through historic gardens. But 2006 is special because the organization credited with preserving much of the city’s historic legacy, the Monterey History and Art Association, is celebrating its 75th anniversary with a series of special observances.

As Monterey Mayor Dan Albert said in a proclamation which declared June 2006 as Historic Monterey Month: “Because of the leadership and diligence exemplified by the MHAA for the past 75 years, the City of Monterey is recognized today as the most historic and well preserved of all cities in California.”

John L. Nau, III, Chairman of the President’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, said he “…will always remember the Monterey History and Art Association and the catalytic effect that that local organization has had and I will carry that message around the country because that organization clearly was the pivoting point for a lot of these programs.”

Included in MHAA anniversary events will be Bouquets to History and Art on April 6-9 at La Merienda, Monterey’s 236th birthday party on June 3; (An Adobe Fiesta), a tour of 23 historic buildings and cultural exhibits on June 24; and a special Sloat Landing ceremony on July 7, the 160th anniversary of the historic event.

The Merienda and Sloat Landing ceremony will be held in front of California Historical Landmark No. 1, the Custom House that was saved by efforts of the history and art association in 1938.

A highlight of events in Monterey is a year-long, rotating exhibit, “75 Treasures for 75 Years: The Path of History and Art,” in MHAA’s Maritime and History Museum. The exhibition features a “path,” along which guests “visit” each of the six landmark buildings owned by the association. Each building features selected items from the MHAA collection that illuminates local life and customs during the period of the building’s construction, as well as phases of the building’s subsequent history. A total of 120 objects will be featured during the rotating exhibition.

Items in the eclectic exhibition vary from exquisite ship models to Meissen porcelain and Steuben crystal; from works by painters of Monterey’s Golden Age such as Armin Hansen, whose painting, “The Vespers,” first was shown at San Francisco’s Pan Pacific International Exposition in 1915 to a dragon figurehead from a 19th century pacific coast lumber schooner to a circa 1835 hand-painted Mexican flag and the original telegraph key that signaled the end of World War II from the deck of the USS Missouri.

A “Founding Artists Wall,” features a montage of photographs and a representative work by each of MHAA’s ten founding artists.

At every phase of the exhibition, “Family Treasure Chests” introduce visitors to families whose cultures and traditions are enriched in local history, including Native Americans, Latino, Chinese, immigrants from the Midwest, Sicilian, Japanese/Asian Pacific and European.

The Adobe Fiesta on June 24 will include Colton Hall, the site of California’s Constitutional Convention in 1849; the Custom House, where Commodore John Drake Sloat raised the American Flag and claimed more than 338 million acres of western territory for the United States; California’s first theatre; the House of the Four Winds, home to Mexican Governor Alvarado and the first Hall of Records for the State of California; and numerous historical buildings.

Further information on events surrounding the Monterey History and Art Association can be obtained at www.montereyhistory.org or by telephone at 831.372.2608.