Front Street (Commercial Buildings), Natchitoches, Natchitoches Parish, LA

Significance: The architectural history of Front Street closely resembles the outline of Louisiana's economic history with most buildings stemming from high economic plateaus. Thus there are three buildings from the late antebellum period that represent Louisiana's vernacular architecture of the plantation era with their multiple asymmetrical French doors, front-gable roofs with setback facades, and second-story porches. Other buildings dating from the 1880s are characteristic of their epoch. These buildings tend to mirror larger, national trends in commercial architecture with their decorated cast-iron facades and tall ornate parapets. There are numerous buildings from the first two decades of the twentieth century that incorporate the stylistic refinement of revival architecture, most notably, a Romanesque Revival three-story building and a one-story Mission Revival. Finally, the strong economy of postwar America left its mark on Front Street through the "modernization" of many ground level commercial spaces along Front Street, occurring in the 1950s and 1960s.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N983
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N983; N1022
Survey number: HABS LA-1319