Littleton's Main Street is a Victorian downtown you can walk in an afternoon

The county-seat paperwork lives in Littleton, but the part people actually linger over is a few blocks of Main Street. The Littleton Main Street Historic District runs roughly along West Main from South Curtice Street to South Sycamore Street, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 8, 1998. It dates to about 1890, so the brick one- and two-story storefronts you pass are the real thing, in a mix of styles from Italianate to early commercial to Moderne.

The anchor is hard to miss: the 1920 town hall, a terra-cotta-clad building designed by architect J.J.B. Benedict in an Italian Renaissance style. After the city moved out in 1977, it sat empty for years until residents raised money to save it. Today it is the Town Hall Arts Center, a nonprofit theater with a roughly 260-seat house and an art gallery, running live plays and concerts most of the year.

Around it, the street fills with locally owned shops, restaurants, and breweries, and the calendar keeps it lively. Western Welcome Week, a late-summer tradition more than 90 years running, sends its grand parade straight down Main Street. Come walk it, then check Visit Littleton for what’s on.