The area is bounded by Third, Davis, Wilson, Sixth Streets, and Santa Rosa Creek.

[2] The Northwestern Pacific Railroad arrived in 1871 and promoted early development of the neighborhood, increasing the population of Santa Rosa from 1,000 to 5,000 within five years.

The neighborhood features primarily brick buildings constructed by stonemasons from Northern Italy, noted for withstanding the 1906 earthquake.

This separation also exacerbated economic hardship in the area from the Great Depression through the urban sprawl of the twentieth century.

The construction of the Santa Rosa Plaza mall in the late 1970s saw a further detached Railroad Square develop into a skid row.