Photo: Facebook/Erik Voss

Once recognized as the spiritual center, government hub, and social epicenter of the city, Main Plaza began to lose its significance late in the nineteenth century with the emergence of trolleys and railroads shifting people’s living, working, and shopping destinations. Later accentuated by the invention of the automobile, the city’s size grew, and proportionately, Main Plaza shrank with the widening of Market Street and the construction of a new county courthouse. And although citizens protested such significant changes, additional taller buildings were constructed around the plaza and its wide-open nature was transformed, leaving the property more of a park than the proud city center it once was. Since then, the plaza itself has been the center of various revitalization efforts, including the launching of a plan in 2006 to knit together the plaza, the San Fernando Cathedral, the courthouse, and the river, recreating its pedestrian character and re-engaging citizens to attend and invest time in Main Plaza.