Willow-Spence Streets Historic District

Willow-Spence Streets Historic District is a compact residential neighborhood of about 18 acres in southern East Austin, south of East 1st Street and east of IH-35. It includes 68 buildings, 38 of them contributing, centered on Willow, Spence, Canterbury, Waller and San Marcos streets. Most are modest wood-frame houses built between about 1910 and the early 1930s, in T-plan, L-plan, pyramidal, bungalow, late Victorian and wraparound-porch forms. Two churches, two stores and a parsonage sit among the homes. El Buen Pastor Church, a simplified Mission Revival building, anchors the northeast corner and helps buffer the area from commercial development on East 1st Street. The district was recognized because its blocks, platted largely after 1900, remain architecturally intact and show fine craftsmanship in vernacular house types that are now rarely found in such concentration. Homes, businesses and churches stand together at a compatible scale, a mix uncommon in a city where functions are usually separated. Many original owners were railroad workers and tradesmen.