Alkali Flat North Historic District

This small cluster of 19th century houses sits at the corner of D and 11th Streets in Sacramento's Alkali Flat, a neighborhood once covered with powdery white alkali. Eighteen buildings fall within the district, mostly workingmen's cottages and modest homes built between 1860 and 1896, plus two Colonial Revival cottages from about 1910. The oldest is 1119 D Street, a two-story Italianate masonry house built in 1860 by Maria Hastings, who owned the Orleans Hotel in the 1850s. Carpenter Phil Douglas built a cottage in 1869, another house in 1872, and four identical Queen Anne row cottages in 1896-1897. Hugh McDonald built the Eastlake houses at 1123 and 1129 D Street. Both men worked for the railroad and speculated in building, a pattern common in the neighborhood. Modern industry and commercial strips have cut away the surrounding blocks, but this remnant keeps the scale, materials and setbacks of a late 19th century working-class neighborhood.