Late 19th–early 20th century. 100 blocks of E. and W. Main sts., and 100 blocks of N. and S. Esplanade sts.
Cuero's town plan is common for a railroad-oriented community, where the commercial center and the courthouse square are separate entities. Main Street, parallel with the tracks, and Esplanade Street, perpendicular to the tracks, are dominated by turn-of-the-twentieth-century commercial buildings. They present a range of brick detailing on two-story structures, mostly variations of commercial vernacular Romanesque Revival to more classical forms. The district fortunately never suffered from the sort of wholesale modernization that often hit county seats like this one in the 1950s and 1960s, leaving this solid collection of buildings, some of which have been rehabilitated during the past twenty years.