The Las Vegas Plaza is a plaza and historic district in

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. The plaza was originally laid out in 1835 by Mexican settlers and is surrounded by a number of historically and architecturally notable buildings. It was listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1974.

History

Las Vegas was established in 1835 after a group of settlers received a land grant from the

Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...

government. The town was laid out in the traditional Spanish Colonial style, with a central plaza surrounded by

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

buildings which could serve as fortifications in case of attack. Las Vegas soon prospered as a stop on the

Santa Fe Trail The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, the ...

. During the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...

in 1846, Stephen W. Kearny delivered an address at the plaza from atop what is thought to be the surviving Dice Apartments building, claiming New Mexico for the United States. In 1854, visiting attorney W. W. H. Davis wrote that the plaza "more resembled a muddy field than a public square, and all sorts of four-footed domestic animals were roaming at large over it." and Las Vegas prospered with the arrival of the railroad in 1880, and many of the one-story adobe buildings surrounding the plaza were replaced by larger and grander structures like the Italianate style

Plaza Hotel The Plaza Hotel (also known as The Plaza) is a luxury hotel and condominium apartment building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is located on the western side of Grand Army Plaza, after which it is named, just west of Fifth Avenue, ...

and Ilfeld Building. During this period, the plaza itself was cleared of livestock and wagons and converted to a tidy public park with trees, fences, and a bandstand.

Notable buildings

Contributing properties in the Plaza historic district include *

, built 1880 * Charles Ilfeld Building, built 1882 *Dice Apartments, the oldest surviving building on the plaza *John D. Veeder Building *Exchange Hotel, built 1850 (only one wing extant) *Romero Mercantile Company Building *First National Bank Building, built 1880

References

External links

{{Commons category-inline Las Vegas, New Mexico National Register of Historic Places in San Miguel County, New Mexico Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in New Mexico

History

Notable buildings

See also

References

External links