Sixth Street

Originally named Pecan Street on Edwin Waller’s 1839 plan for Austin, Sixth Street began as a farm-to-market road entering the city from the east. Bringing together a diverse ethnic population, it became a center of Austin’s 19th-century development. From its early years it was a major thoroughfare and stagecoach route, with the Bullock Hotel at the corner of Pecan and Congress Avenue serving as a stage stop. Its flat terrain and distance from the occasionally flooding Colorado River made it attractive for commercial growth, and shops, saloons, stables, and wagon and lumberyards lined the street, with many owners living above their businesses. Development continued through the 1880s along Pecan Street, which was renamed Sixth Street in 1884. Sixth Street contains Austin’s largest concentration of Victorian commercial architecture. In the 20th century, many changes came to the street and some early structures fell into disrepair, but restoration efforts beginning in the 1960s revitalized the area and brought recognition of its place in Austin’s history. Sixth Street was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Austin, Texas · United States