California's first public library was established in Monterey in 1849. Colton Hall schoolmaster the Reverend Dr. Samuel H. Willey, in his Thirty Years in California, claimed credit for organizing the library, and other individuals were substantially involved. Civic leaders established Monterey Library Association and persuading citizens to purchase $40 shares in a public library which would "...afford amusement, entertainment, and profit to a large class of people who, without its aid, would waste their time in the frivolities and questionable pastimes so prevalent in our State."
From the sale of stock, the Association raised $1,500, which was used to purchase the first collection of books. Monterey's first American alcalde, Walter Colton, who had returned to the East, arranged for the collection of about 900 books to be shipped around Cape Horn to Monterey. The original collection featured a well chosen variety of works of history, theology, biography, poetry, science and medicine, travel journals, legal and political writings, reference works including the Encyclopedia Americana and Webster's Dictionary. There were about 250 works of fiction featuring American classics by DeFoe and Cooper, 18th Century English classics, and a heavy dose of popular contemporary writer Charles Dickens. About one-quarter of the books were written in Spanish.
The first library was housed in El Cuartel, a Mexican government building built in 1840, which
was located on what is now Munras Avenue, just south of Simoneau Plaza. There was a reading room stocked with books, newspapers, magazines, maps and government
documents. Shareholders were allowed to borrow books, but others could gain this privilege by paying a monthly subscriber's fee of one dollar and by leaving with the
librarian a cash deposit equal to twice the value of the book being borrowed. Almost as soon as the library was established, Monterey suffered a series of economic
misfortunes, not the least of which was mass depopulation owing to the Gold Rush. In 1874, the library moved to Colton Hall where, because of lapses in the operation of local
government, the library was kept under lock and key. Later, the library was moved to the school house which burned to the ground in 1893, destroying most of the library's
collection. In 1901, Monterey's public library reorganized under the auspices of a ladies' literary society. Soliciting book donations and holding fundraising events,
the volunteers were able to keep the library open two afternoons a week in various storefronts on Alvarado Street.
In 1906, the Monterey Library Association turned over its assets to the City of Monterey. With a piece of real estate donated
by Mrs. A.M. Freitas and a building grant from Andrew Carnegie, the Monterey Public Library 
opened its doors at 425 Van Buren Street in 1911. The new library was designed by prolific California architect William Weeks, in the Mission Revival style, and was home for Monterey Public Library for the next 40 years. It
featured separate reading rooms for adults and children and a basement smoking room with a fireplace for gentlemen only. On June 30, 1911, the Monterey Daily Cypress
predicted that the new gentlemen's smoking room would be quite popular with laborersbecause the entrance was situated so that a fellow could drop in for a read and a smoke
without having to dress up. Today, the Carnegie building, which has been expanded and remodeled, is home to the library for Monterey Institute of International Studies.
