[2] Built in 3 phases, construction on the Custom House began in 1814 under the Spanish, the center section under Mexican rule in 1827, with the lower end completed by the United States in 1846.

Such painters as Arthur Frank Mathews, Armin Hansen, Xavier Martinez, Rowena Meeks Abdy and Percy Gray lived or visited to pursue painting in the style of either En plein air or Tonalism.

More recently, Monterey has been recognized for its significant involvement in post-secondary learning of languages other than English and its major role in delivering translation and interpretation services around the world.

[5] In time, the butterflies, fragrant pines and fresh sea air brought others to the Pacific Grove Retreat to rest and meditate.

Modelled after the Methodist Sunday school teachers’ training camp established in 1874 at Lake Chautauqua, N.Y., this location became part of a nationwide educational network.

In November 1879, after the summer campers returned home, Robert Louis Stevenson wandered into the deserted campgrounds: "I have never been in any place so dreamlike.

Artists of the En plein air school in both Europe and the United States were seeking an outdoor venue which had natural beauty, so that Pacific Grove was a magnet for this movement.

For a number of years, John Steinbeck lived in a cottage in Pacific Grove owned by his father, Ernest, who was Monterey County Treasurer.

In Steinbeck's book Sweet Thursday, a chapter is dedicated to describing a (probably fictional) rivalry that arose among the town's residents over the game of roque.

The Point Piños Light in Pacific Grove is the oldest continually operating lighthouse on the West Coast of the United States.

In 1911, the town's rich Shakespearean tradition began with a production of Twelfth Night, directed by Garnet Holme of UC Berkeley and featuring future mayors Perry Newberry and Herbert Heron, with settings designed by artist DeNeale Morgan.

[7] By 1914, the club had achieved national recognition, with an article The Mercury Herald commenting "...a fever of activity seems to have seized the community and each newcomer is immediately inoculated and begins with great enthusiasm to do something... with plays, studios and studies...".

The Hotel Del Monte, opened in 1880, was the first true resort complex in the United States and was the forerunner to today's Pebble Beach Company.

It became popular with the wealthy and influential of the day, and hosted guests from Theodore Roosevelt to Ernest Hemingway, as well as many early Hollywood stars.

A train station was built in Monterey expressly for the purpose of bringing visitors to the resort, and the Del Monte name is still frequently seen around town.

The Hotel Del Monte was requisitioned by the Navy at the beginning of World War II, and is now the central building of the Naval Postgraduate School.

The hotel's park reservation, originally used for hunting and other outdoor activities, became Pebble Beach, an unincorporated community and well-known golf resort area.

The famous 17-Mile Drive was originally designed as a local excursion for visitors to the Del Monte, in which they could take in the historic sights of Monterey and Pacific Grove and the scenery of what would become Pebble Beach.

Some taxa, such as the coastal closed-cone pines (which include Monterey pine) and the Monterey cypress are relict stands, i.e. species that once extended more widely in the mesic climate of the late Pleistocene epoch, but then retreated to small pockets of cooler and moister conditions along the coast ranges during the hotter, drier early and middle Holocene epoch between 6000 and 2000 BC.