San Elizario Historic District
a.k.a. San Elceario Presidio;San Elizario Townsite Historic Distric
Roughly bounded by Rio Grande St., Socorro and Convent Rds., and the San Elizario Lateral, San Elizario, TXThe San Elizario Historic District is an intact agricultural and commercial community that evolved over the past 200 years from its origins as a Spanish presidio along a spur of the Camino Real. Its period of significance, c. 1830-1946, begins with the estimated construction date of the earliest Contributing properties and ends with the fifty-year cut-off date for eligibility, which also marks the World War II period when local builders began to rely on prefabricated building materials. Although periodic flooding destroyed most, if not all, of the original presidio complex, the community that grew on the presidio site during the 19th century based its spatial organization, irrigation system, and building practices on the precedents of the presidio and Spanish colonial settlement customs set. In the 1880s, the coming of the railroad and the subsequent bypassing of San Elizario diminished the community's importance in the region while also contributing to the preservation of its physical attributes and historic resources. Although all extant architectural resources post-date the 1829 flood, investigations suggest that archeological evidence of the pre-flood presidio is still present beneath the more recent buildings, warranting the inclusion of these archeological sites as Contributing resources. The district is nominated at the local level of significance for its strong association with the early agricultural and commercial settlement of the Lower Valley, with Spanish and Mexican town planning practices, and with Hispanic ethnic heritage. It is also nominated for its concentrated grouping of Spanish Colonial Revival-influenced residential, commercial, and institutional buildings, and for the archeological data numerous sites have yielded or may yield providing information about the area's early history.
Local significance of the district:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1997.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.