Emma Lou Linn is a local legend.
"She's just one of those little old ladies in tennis shoes that got things done in the old days," Shannon Sedwick, president of the Old Pecan Street Association, said.
It may be hard to believe, but Linn made Sixth Street what it is today.
"Without her leadership, this never could have happened," Roppolo's Pizza owner Mark Hall said.
It all started 50 years ago when Linn saw a bunch of historic buildings on Congress Avenue being torn down.
"I realized that we had no method, no vehicle to save those buildings, so I started working really hard to get ordinances passed to protect historic buildings," she said.
Linn joined the city council in 1975 and co-founded the Pecan Street Festival in 1978 as a way to highlight the history on Sixth.
"It's one of the few areas in town that still has the original facades," Linn said.
If you look closely, you can see plaques all over Sixth street. They're there because Linn got the street listed on the National Register of Historic Places by going door to door and rallying the business community on Sixth.
"She brought passion, she brought love and most of all, she brought integrity," Hall said.
But if you ask Linn about her impact on the city, she responds with humility.
"I'm just a regular person won happened to be in the right place at the right time who bumbled my way through," she said.
Linn used to live on Sixth Street. She isn't active in city politics anymore, but she still teaches at St. Edward's University.