South Bridge Street Historic District

Five blocks south of Victoria's central business district, a cluster of frame commercial buildings sits around the corner of South Bridge and West Water streets. The district takes in six primary buildings and a rear garage on lots 1 and 2 of block 93, built or placed here between about 1900 and 1936. They are one- and two-story stores with gabled roofs, stepped parapets, awnings or shed porches, and a mix of board-and-batten, drop, weatherboard and tin finishes. Two of the buildings were moved to their sites, one of them from a nearby college campus. The district served as a neighborhood retail center for Victoria's immigrant and minority residents. Grocers, restaurants, saloons, laundries, barber shops and bakeries operated here, run by Mexican-American, German and Italian owners. Because other historic buildings around the corner have been altered, this group is Victoria's only intact collection of pre-World War II frame vernacular commercial buildings, which is the basis for its listing for architecture and commerce.