Colton Hall

Walter Colton built this hall from fines levied on gamblers, taxes on cantinas, and the forced labor of convicts — funding sources he recorded with dry self-awareness in his own diary. Completed on March 8, 1849, it was the largest public building in California at the time. That same year, delegates from across the territory met on its upper floor to draft California's first state constitution. The second floor remains a museum, restored to look as it did during that convention, and admission is free.