National Register #79000561
Railroad Square District
Santa Rosa
Built 1888-1923

From 1870 to 1936, during the railroad era, Santa Rosa was the service center for Sonoma County. From the 1870s to the 1910s, cobblestone quarries in Sonoma County provided paving stones for San Francisco. Railroads transported stones both locally and regionally.

In 1870, A wooden depot was built on the site of the present stone depot. When it was destroyed by fire in 1903, it was replaced by the present single stone depot.

Most of the historic buildings in the district were constructed after the 1906 earthquake, which hit Santa Rosa particularly hard. The most significant buildings in Railroad Square are the four stone buildings surrounding a central park, the most Concentrated grouping of early stone buildings in Sonoma County:

Northwestern Pacific Railroad Depot (1904)
Western Hotel (1903)
La Rose Hotel (1907)
REA Express Building (c1915)

These commercial masonary buildings are among the few remaining in Santa Rosa, the others having been destroyed by the earthquakes of 1906 and 1969 and by urban renewal.

The Hotel La Rose is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Source: NRHP nomination form submitted in 1979.