Downtown Loveland Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior in March 2015. Encompassing portions of nine square blocks that form the core of the city's historic commercial downtown, the district is centered on East 4th Street, Loveland’s commercial main street, between Railroad Avenue on the west and the block between Jefferson and Washington Avenues on the east, and it has served as the center of economic activity in Loveland for over a century. Founded in 1877, Loveland developed first as a railroad town, then became a major agricultural center and a regional center of commerce and government. The district reflects the evolution of the city's commercial growth and shows the architectural evolution of Loveland’s changing commercial needs and tastes through late 19th- and early 20th-century commercial style architecture, as well as notable examples of Classical, Romanesque, and Mission Revival style buildings and early 1940s Moderne style storefronts.