Located at the foot of the Raton Pass, the town grew alongside the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad. Bartlett Mesa frames the town on the north. Prior to 1911, the major north - south streets in town were named for the AT & SF, a fitting practice since the railroad laid out the town. Today, the commercial district roughly includes First Street (formerly Railroad Avenue), Second Street (formerly Santa Fe Avenue), and the east side of Third Street (formerly Topeka Avenue), which run parallel to the railroad tracks, between Apache and Parsons avenues. This area encompasses part of Maxwell North Addition and the Original Townsite. Within the business district, First Street developed in the late nineteenth century, with substantial, mostly brick, commercial buildings, constructed in styles such as Romanesque Revival and Italianate. By 1911, the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps show that blocks 1, 2, 7, and 8 of the Original Townsite had been predominantly developed. Today, Second Street (Highway 64/85) functions as the major traffic corridor through town, and Highway 25 skirts Raton to the east.
The commercial lots measure 25 feet wide by 140 feet deep. Rear service alleys, measuring 20 feet wide, run north-south and are paved with a combination of gravel and asphalt. Paved streets, measuring approximately 100 feet wide, with low curbs and concrete sidewalks are laid throughout the district. The district includes various stamped concrete sidewalks, which are considered contributing structures. Examples are found on North 3rd Street across from the Colfax County Courthouse where "ERA" stamps are clearly visible, as well as round Mendenhall Contractor stamps on South First Street. There is also a Raton Cement Construction Co. Raton, NM stamp on Rio Grande Avenue (Photo 3). The commercial district includes numerous street trees, many of which were planted post-1976.1 Ripley Park, a landscaped city green that originated between 1911 and 1919, is located at the north end of the district.
In recent years, there was one significant loss to the historic district. In 2012, a fire destroyed the former Seaburg European Hotel, which was listed as a contributing building in the early nomination. At the turn of the century, Swedish immigrant Hugo Seaburg expanded an old livery stable into a fashionable hotel, which was later popularly known as the El Portal. In 2013, the site and remnants of the building were cleared from the lot.
Early residential sections were developed to the west, south, and northeast of the main thoroughfare and commercial district. Historic residences intermingle with commercial resources at the district's western boundary of Third Street. The area to the west and south includes the more stylistic and substantial houses built by railroad executives, coal company owners, and merchants. The area to the northeast includes vernacular dwellings and Hipped Box cottages, many of which were moved into town from the coal camps once they were disbanded.
Raton may be compared with Las Vegas, New Mexico, a plaza and railroad town about 90 miles to the southwest. Similar late nineteenth-century development patterns and architectural styles are found in both communities, and the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad arrived in both communities by 1880. Raton also warrants comparison to Telluride, Colorado, only 20 miles north across the state line. Both towns, founded only two years apart, share a similar climate and geography. Historically, Telluride was also a mining town, extracting zinc, lead, copper, gold, and silver ore. - NRHP, March 2014