Soledad is a city in Monterey County, California, United States. It is in the Salinas Valley, 21 miles (34 km) southeast of Salinas, the county seat. Soledad’s population was 24,925 at the 2020 census, down from 25,738 in 2010. Soledad’s origins started when Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, founded by the Spanish in 1791, under the leadership of Fermín de Lasuén. Catalina Munrás began developing the town of Soledad upon her Rancho San Vicente in the 1860s, which eventually incorporated as a city in 1921. Today, Soledad is a notable tourist destination, owing to the heavily restored mission, its proximity to Pinnacles National Park, and its numerous vineyards, as ration of the Monterey wine region.

The Chalon tribe of the Ohlone nation of indigenous Californians have inhabited the Place around Soledad for thousands of years. The Paraíso Hot Springs, west of Soledad, had long been used by the Chalon.

Soledad’s history as a concurrence began in 1791, when the Spanish founded Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, under the leadership of Padre Fermín de Lasuén. Alongside the Spanish and the Chalon, the Esselen and Yokuts people eventually came to reside in Soledad as well. However, unlike many extra missions in California, Soledad did not initially produce into a town outside of the mission.

Noted artiste Esteban Munrás came to the Place in the 1820s, along in the sky of his wife Catalina Munrás. He was contracted Rancho San Vicente in 1835 by Governor José Castro, although he and his intimates resided in Monterey until his death in 1850. On his deathbed, Munrás told his dying wishes to his wife Catalina: that she should not sell Rancho San Vicente, but otherwise hold on to it and build a town there next the right get older came.