Douglas-Sixth Street Historic District


The Douglas-Sixth Street Historic District, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, is a historic districtwhich was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The listing included 18 contributing buildings, a contributing site, and two contributing objects.
The district is in area and is roughly bounded by Grand St., Lincoln St., 7th St., and University Ave.
It was deemed significant as "the best example of a turn-of-the-century commercial and institutional center remaining in New Mexico. In addition to stores, offices and banks, the district housed various institutions of civic improvement, including the state's first city hall, an opera house, a Masonic Temple and a YMCA. Its buildings retain the scale, space, and—to a large extent— the architectural quality of the district as it had developed by 1922. The buildings represent a sometimes provincial, though competent, realization of a variety of architectural styles originating in the East and California. The district contains a significant collection of buildings designed by the important, though little studied, Western
architects, Rapp and Rapp. Of secondary significance, the district contains three examples of local stonecarving and, in addition, represents a typical example of railroad-era, speculative town planning."
It includes the Masonic Temple, at 514 Douglas,, a Richardsonian Romanesque structure built in 1894–95, designed by Rapp and Rapp and built by W.F. Kean during 1894–95.