[1] It was effectively the last capitol building of Mexican California under Governor Pio Pico, in 1845–47, and was a center of social and political life for decades.

[2][3][4][5] The building was thought to exist very close to the original site of Yaanga, a prominent Tongva (or Kizh) village.

[2][4][7] The single-story adobe became the last capitol of Mexican Alta California when Governor Pío Pico bought it and used it as his office.

The Overland Mail Company operated by John Butterfield (the founder of American Express) rented space for a station until it built new quarters in 1860 at Second and Spring--the present location of Mirror Building.

The Wells, Fargo and Company also had their office here and Phineas Banning operated coaches to Wilmington and San Bernardino from the hotel.

What had previously been the Shepard cigar and fancy store and had also served as Western Union headquarters in the city, was refitted to serve as a lounge, with reading and chess tables, and a dozen antique Elizabethan chairs from the California Theater in San Francisco.

[10] In 1851, when Horace Bell, the author of the seminal historical work Reminiscences of a Ranger, first came to Los Angeles, the hotel was owned by James Brown Winston, a medical doctor, and Alpheus P. Hodges, the city's mayor.

Bell's book, published in 1881, recounted how the hotel looked when he had stayed there thirty years before:[11][12] The house was a one-story flat-roofed adobe, with a corral in the rear, extending to Los Angeles street, with the usual great Spanish portal, near which stood a little frame house, one room above and one below.

The lower room had the sign "Imprenta" over the door fronting on Los Angeles street, which meant that the Star was published therein.

In rainy weather the primitive earthen floor was sometimes, and generally, rendered quite muddy the percolations from the roof above.

If a very aristocratic guest came along, a great sacrifice was made in his favor, and he was permitted to sleep on the little billiard table.

had slung to their rear the never-failing pair of Colt's, generally with the accompaniment of the bowie knife.

They men had made their plans carefully and carried them out so realistically that, according to Horace Bell, they completely hoodwinked the mayor, who actually thought the pueblo was being attacked by a mob of rebels.