The Cosmopolitan Hotel and Restaurant is identifiable by the second-story wooden balcony that wraps around its exterior, set above a one-story adobe foundation. Located in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, the building began its life…
Old Town Adobe History
Walk through 19th-century mud-brick homes and historic plazas to see where Spanish, Mexican, and American cultures shaped modern California.
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1. Cosmopolitan Hotel and Restaurant
2. La Casa de Estudillo
La Casa de Estudillo is a sprawling U-shaped adobe residence defined by its thick, lime-whitewashed walls and a central courtyard. Built between eighteen twenty-seven and eighteen twenty-nine for Presidio commandant José María de…
3. La Casa de Machado y Silvas (Commercial Restraunt)
La Casa de Machado y Silvas is a rectangular adobe building that fronts the plaza in Old Town San Diego. Built in the early eighteen-forties, the structure began as a wedding gift from José Manuel Machado to his daughter, María Antonia,…
4. La Casa de Machado y Stewart
La Casa de Machado y Stewart is a single-story adobe building distinguished by its rectangular shape and a porch supported by wooden beams. Built around eighteen thirty-five by José Manuel Machado, a corporal in the local leather-jacket…
5. Mason Street Schoolhouse
The Mason Street Schoolhouse is a modest, one-room wooden structure measuring twenty-four by thirty feet. Built in eighteen sixty-five, it stands as the first publicly owned school in San Diego County. Inside, a single space once held…
6. Whaley House Museum
The Whaley House in Old Town San Diego is recognizable as the city's first two-story brick structure, built in the Greek Revival style. Thomas Whaley, an entrepreneur who arrived during the Gold Rush, designed the house and fired its…
7. El Campo Santo
El Campo Santo, meaning Holy Field, is a cemetery established in eighteen forty-nine that sits behind a low white wooden fence in Old Town. It holds the remains of four hundred seventy-seven people, including early settlers, pioneers, and…