San Jose became the capital of the territory of California on December 15, 1849, and stayed the capital after statehood on September 9, 1850. The legislature met in a two-story adobe hotel built around 1830 on the plaza. Its first and second sessions, in 1850 and 1851, are remembered as the Legislature of a Thousand Drinks. Lawmakers found no buildings fit for a government, and they accepted Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo’s offer of land for a new capital at what is now Benicia.
San Jose incorporated on March 27, 1850, the same day as San Diego and Benicia. The capitol is long gone. Its site is marked at the Circle of Palms Plaza, a ring of palms around a California state seal beside the San Jose Museum of Art, designated California Historical Landmark No. 461 in 1950. Each winter an outdoor ice rink, Downtown Ice, is set up there.