Rainey Street Historic District
70--97 Rainey St., Austin, TXThe boundary of the Rainey Street Historic District is identified by the heavy black line on the accompanying map of the East Austin Multiple Resource Nomination and by the heavy black line on the accompanying U.S.G.S. quadrangle. The area circumscribed by this boundary is a small, well-defined, and relatively intact historic neighborhood which was selected on the basis of consistent historic development, density and integrity of historic structures, and range of architectural types. Contingent areas which are excluded from the district include the length of Driskill Street, which has suffered the loss of almost every historic structure during the past ten years; East Avenue, which fronts on IH-35, a major disruptive transportation thoroughfare; blocks between River Street and the Colorado River where housing is insufficiently dense and too recent to justify inclusion in a National Register district; and Davis Street, where recent redevelopment has resulted in the construction of large commercial structures which are incompatible with the Rainey Street area. A few nineteenth-century residences still stand on Davis and Red River streets, but most are either severely deteriorated or altered.
Local significance of the district:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
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.