La Casita Del Sol...part of Tucson's history

La Casita Del Sol, a fully-restored 1880s working class adobe rowhouse, is located in the El Presidio Historic Neighborhood, in the northern downtown area of Tucson.

The El Presidio Historic Neighborhood is the oldest neighborhood in Tucson, having developed as Spanish settlers made their simple adobe homes just outside the fort (presidio) that protected the mission and convent established by the Spanish conquistadores and missionaries in 1776. A vestige of the Camino Real, the royal highway that connected Mexico City with San Francisco in California, remains as Main Avenue in the El Presidio neighborhood.

The eventual arrival of westbound settlers from the East Coast of the United States and European immigrants expanded the original Spanish, Mexican, and Native American population, and the arrival of the railroad in 1880 brought new cultures, languages, art, and architecture to Tucson. The movers and shakers of Tucson’s nineteenth-century political and social life built grand homes and mansions on Main Avenue, and the area was soon popularly called “Snob Hollow.”

In contrast, Meyer Avenue (where La Casita is located) and Court Street were the streets where the middle and lower class folks lived and formed the backbone for the development of Tucson, the Arizona Territory and eventually--on Valentine's Day in 1906--the State of Arizona.

Although many of the grand structures on Main and Granada Avenues were razed during the 1960’s preoccupation with “urban development,” many fine residences remain, some of which are still occupied by the families who first built and lived in those homes at the turn of the twentieth century.  

Court Street and Meyer Avenue provide a streetscape of historic adobe row houses, brick railroad homes, and historically-respectful infill homes that give hint to the color, flavor, and vibrancy of original Tucson.

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Dan Overbeck and Mark Flamini, owners and operators