Southern Pacific Depot Historic District

Eight blocks east of the Alamo in San Antonio, this 20-acre district grew up around the Southern Pacific Depot, built in 1902 where E. Commerce Street meets the railroad tracks. The depot drew travelers and, with them, hotels, restaurants, saloons and shops that replaced earlier residences. Most of the 25 contributing properties are two- and three-story brick commercial buildings from the first two decades of the twentieth century, many showing Mission Revival details borrowed from the depot, such as parapets, angled corner entrances and a tile-roofed tower on the Heimann Building. The Gothic Revival St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church and its parsonage predate the depot and recall the earlier neighborhood. E. Commerce follows a road laid out by the Spanish in 1805. When documented, most buildings were vacant and run down, though the city development agency planned restoration and one building had already been rehabilitated.