Sixth Street is a historic street and entertainment district in Austin, Texas, located within the city's urban core in downtown Austin. Sixth Street was formerly named Pecan Street under Austin's older naming convention, which had east–west streets named after trees and north–south streets named after Texas rivers (the latter convention remains in place).

The nine-block area of East Sixth Street roughly between Lavaca Street to the west and Interstate 35 to the east is recognized as the Sixth Street Historic District and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on December 30, 1975. Developed as one of Austin's trade and commercial districts in the late 1800s, the predominant building style are two- or three-story masonry Victorian commercial architecture. Most structures in the area had already been built by the 1880s, though a few notable exceptions include the Driskill Hotel (1886), the Scarbrough Building (1910), and the Littlefield Building.

The area around nearby 4th Street and 6th Street has been a major entertainment district since the 1970s.[5] Many bars, clubs, music venues, and shopping destinations are located on East 6th Street between Congress Avenue and Interstate 35, and many offer live music at one time or another during the week. Traffic is generally blocked on East 6th Street and most crossroads from I-35 to Brazos Street on weekend evenings, and football home games (depending on pedestrian traffic), as well as holidays and special events, to allow the crowds to walk unfettered to the many venues that line the street.

East Sixth Street (known locally as Dirty Sixth) plays host to a wide variety of events each year, ranging from music and film festivals (such as South by Southwest) to biker rallies (such as The Republic of Texas Biker Rally) and the Pecan Street Festival.

The area of Sixth Street west of Lavaca is known as the West 6th Street District. Recently, a movement has been growing to develop this area as an entertainment district of its own, geared toward the live-music crowd. Austin was planned on a 15-block grid plan developed by Edwin Waller that was bisected by Congress Avenue running north–south. The Bastrop Highway linking the town to earlier settlements in East Texas was charted in 1839 and chose the route into Austin along Pecan Street. The stagecoach followed this route when it arrived in Austin in 1840, and used the Bullock Hotel at the northwest corner of Pecan and Congress as the stage stop. The Bullock, built in 1839 by Richard Bullock, was a complex of log building which served as the quasiformal and informal meeting place in Austin for several years. That particular intersection quickly became the focal point of town life.

The town grew like a cross up and down Congress and Pecan. Pecan had an obvious advantage for development. The street was far enough from the river to escape flooding, which occasionally spread as far as Cypress Street (3rd Street), and it was the last east–west street flat enough for wagons and pedestrians to travel comfortably. Following an explosive growth in town population between 1850 and 1860, Pecan soon contained not only log and frame houses, but also was lined with wagon yards, livery stables, and saloons to meet the needs of travelers. Austin's first bridge was built to carry Pecan Street across Shoal Creek in 1865, though the narrow iron footbridge, built by the United States Army, could not carry wagon traffic.

While the Civil War interrupted Sixth Street's growth in the 1860s, the following years were the height of Sixth Street's importance as a commercial center. The arrival of the railroad in 1871 was very much to Sixth Street's benefit, as some of Austin's most prestigious business enterprises were located here to be near the railroad depot. Lots along the street were in great demand and fine two- and three-story limestone Victorian commercial structures began to line the streets where one-story frame buildings or vacant lots had been. In 1887, a new, larger bridge across Shoal Creek was built to match the full 80-foot (24 m) width of Sixth Street and permit wagons to cross; this West Sixth Street Bridge is still in use today, and has since been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

During the late 1880s, however, Congress Avenue began to pre-empt Sixth Street as the most fashionable shopping destination in the city. The new Capitol building was being built at the head of Congress and most businesses catering to city-dwellers and/or a state government clientele moved to a Congress location. Sixth Street, though, continued to function as a site for offices, warehouses, and showrooms of businesses using the railroad, as well as to businesses catering to farmers or other travelers. In 1886, the famous four-story Driskill Hotel was completed at 122 E. 6th Street. #sixthstreet #6th #6thstreet #6thstreetbridge #mapschool #mapsolo #maps #mapas [ Ссылка ]

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