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The State Capitol Building was not located on The Plaza proper. It stood between the present day San Jose Museum of Free Art and the Ostentatious Fairmont Hotel. It is long, long gone.

In December 1849, California's first state legislature met here. San Jose was the Capital of California from 1849 to 1851.

The Legislature Building was a two-story adobe house, 40 by 60 feet. When politicians arrived in December of 1849, it was unfinished. The 36-member Assembly met in the completed room on the second floor, while the 16-member Senate met in Isaac Branham's house at the southwest corner of The Plaza.

Refer to Clyde Arbuckle's extraordinary book History of San Jose for more detail.

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