Main Street/Market Square Historic District
a.k.a. 1019784292;0625751175;061174939;032480968;0708821903;0505783
Roughly bounded by Buffalo Bayou, Fannin, Texas, and Milamsts, Houston, TXThe structures and sites of the Main Street/Market Square Historic District constitute Houston's largest, most nearly intact accumulation of physical resources representing the city's civic and commercial past. Main Street, the commercial axis of the city, runs south from Allen's Landing at Buffalo Bayou to Texas Avenue, the southern boundary of the original townsite. Flanking Main Street are the two public squares, Market Square and Courthouse Square, set aside by the founders. Until well into the twentieth century, this cruciform pattern of streets and places marked the bounds of the public and business life of Houston. Here were the municipal and county buildings, as well as structures dedicated to wholesale, retail, and financial enterprises.
The surviving architecture documents the episodes of development which occurred between Reconstruction and the building and real estate boom of the 1920s, the half-century when Houston emerged from relative obscurity to become the largest city in the southern United States. Connected with many of these buildings and places are the personalities and institutions which were instrumental in promoting the city's political and commercial advancement.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
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.