The San Miguel Historic area is a reminder of Socorro's Spanish Colonial and Territorial past. Originally this area contained flat roofed, adobes with small windows and doors, contiguously arranged around small plazas. Today little of that time period remains. Most of the houses within this area are of adobe construction and are closely grouped around narrow, rambling paved streets. Nearly all of the houses are sited close to the street front property lines, eliminating most Front yards.
Corrugated metal is the predominant roofing material.
Adobe construction is the predominant building material in pre-1945 Socorro, only the San Miguel area retains a strong sense of the early community. This association with Socorro's past is conveyed by the closely grouped adobe houses and by the distinctive Spanish-Mexican street pattern and landscaping. The Church-McCutcheon area is a residential block dominated by Socorro's most notable concentration of late 19th century Eastern style houses. This area also contains adobe buildings constructed over an eighty year period from the Spanish-Colonial era to the 1930's. The block had been platted in 1882 as the McCutcheon subdivision in honor of Annie McCutcheon.