Old Pecan Street: The Sixth Street Historic District

Before it was Sixth Street, it was Pecan Street — Austin's main commercial drag, where merchants raised brick-and-cast-iron storefronts, a livery stable doubled as an opera house, and a hardware king built a showplace still admired today. What saved this streetscape is almost funny: as downtown's money moved elsewhere in the twentieth century, nobody bothered to tear these old buildings down, and by the 1970s they were rediscovered as one of the best-preserved Victorian commercial districts in Texas. This walk moves building to building through that intact block, reading the names and dates in the cornices, and ends where the modern entertainment street it became still runs full-throttle every weekend night.