The Mexicans who colonized Las Vegas brought their Spanish styles of architecture. Their buildings were oriented toward using areas in the rear of their houses. So they built L, U, and complete square shapes, forming placitas, or courtyards, with the front of the house having a portal or just a simple doorway. Rows of such houses created enclosed corridors as the street above. In Las Vegas these corridors manifested on S. Pacific and Church Sts.

In 1870 the Weekly Mail newspaper was started by Ash Upton and John Bollinger. Louis Hommel changed the name to the Daily Gazette, before J.H. Koogler bought it in 1875, establishing an important daily paper. Later in the 1900's the Monsimers owned a grocery store here, and much later in 1949 Joseph W. Stein opened an art gallery here, called Los Artesanos. In recent times, after a fire, this one of Las Vegas's oldest buildings, has tradgically been allowed to deteriorate into a ruin and subsequently removed.