Downtown

The area bordered by Franklin Street on the north, Cushing Street on the south, Church Avenue on the east, and Main Avenue on the west contains over two centuries of Tucson's history, dating from the original walled El Presidio de Tucson, a Spanish fortress built in 1776, when Arizona was still part of New Spain. A good deal of the city's history was destroyed in the 1960s, when large sections of downtown's barrio were bulldozed to make way for the Tucson Convention Center, high-rises, and parking lots. However, within the area's three small historic districts it's still possible to explore Tucson's architectural and cultural past.

El Presidio Historic District, north of the Convention Center and the government buildings that dominate downtown, is an architectural thumbnail of the city's former self. The north-south streets Court, Meyer, and Main are sprinkled with traditional Mexican adobe houses sitting cheek by jowl with territorial-style houses, with wide attics and porches. Paseo Redondo, once called Snob Hollow, is the wide road along which wealthy merchants built their homes. The area most closely resembling 19th-century Tucson is the Barrio Historico, also known as Barrio Viejo. The narrow streets of this neighborhood, including Convent Avenue, have a good sampling of thick-wall adobe houses. The houses are close to the street, hiding the yards and gardens within. To the east of the Barrio Historico, across Stone Avenue, is the Armory Park neighborhood, mostly constructed by and for the railroad workers who settled here after the 1880s. The brick or wood territorial-style homes here were the Victorian era's adaptation to the desert climate.