Every cardIn date order, 1846 to 2025
54 firsts, 20 claimed firsts and 91 beginnings, filed by decade.
165 cards
1840s11 cards
- Smith County’s commissioners’ court meets for the first timeElected, and seated before the end of 1846.
- The state’s inventory counts five courthouses in TylerLog cabins of 1846 and 1848, then 1852, 1910 and 1955.
- Tyler is authorized as a county seatThe Texas Legislature creates Smith County and its county seat.
- Smith County holds its first electionSmith County held its first election on August 8, 1846, choosing its first judge, clerk, sheriff, assessor, collector, treasurer and a three-member commission.
- The county’s first court session meets in a log cabinAn abandoned one-room cabin in Tyler, December 1846.
- A log courthouse, Tyler’s first civic buildingOn the north side of the square, 1847.
- Tyler gets its first post officeOne of several starts in 1847, with a courthouse plan and a congregation.
- Commissioners lay out the town around a squareA 100-acre site is bought for $150 and laid out in 28 blocks.
- Marvin Methodist, called the first church in Smith CountyOrganized in 1848 by the Revs. Sam Box and Alexander Douglas.
- First Baptist Church of Tyler is organizedSix charter members, meeting in the log courthouse.
- The Masons, Tyler’s first fraternal orderSt. John’s Lodge No. 53; the Odd Fellows followed in 1851.
1850s11 cards
- Tyler’s oldest recorded school: four boys, west of townA school for boys on Oakwood Street, closed before the Civil War.
- Tyler is incorporatedIncorporated, and the county seat of Smith County.
- A female seminary opens, later Charnwood InstituteDated 1851 by the city’s survey and 1865 by the Handbook.
- The Tyler Telegraph, the county’s first newspaperDavid Clopton began publishing the Tyler Telegraph, a weekly and the first newspaper in Smith County, in 1851.
- The 1852 courthouse, whose bricks went into later onesGone now; its bricks went into the 1908 and 1955 courthouses.
- The Methodists’ Sunday school, called “the first”In the home of Reverend Wells, 1852.
- Oakwood Cemetery’s oldest marked graveFour-year-old P. M. Scott, who died in 1852.
- Tyler University opens as a Baptist academyIts women’s department became Eastern Texas Female College.
- The first try at a railroad: a charter, and no trackThe Dallas and Tyler Railroad’s charter expired unbuilt.
- The first brick buildings in Smith CountyFive stores on the square, built by Alfred W. Ferguson.
- The first known record of a Disciples of Christ churchAn 1859 deed for a red brick sanctuary.
1860s4 cards
- Camp Ford becomes a prison campCamp Ford began in 1862 as a Confederate conscript-training camp four miles northeast of Tyler, named for Col. John S. (Rip) Ford.
- Missionary work begins what becomes Christ Episcopal ChurchIts first rector, Hungarian-born Emir Hamvasy, arrived in 1872.
- The first school for Black children in the Tyler areaOpened with help from the Freedmen’s Bureau; attacked, it held on a few years.
- Murphey the Jeweler opens at Ferguson and BroadwayA family business, one of the oldest stores in East Texas, says its marker.
1870s13 cards
- Bonner and Williams, Tyler’s first bankFounded by Col. Thomas R. Bonner, later speaker of the Texas House.
- First Presbyterian Church is organizedIt first met in the Methodist church.
- St. James CME Church is organizedMeeting in a house on East Erwin; it later created Texas College.
- The Tyler Tap Railroad is chartered23 citizens applied, led by Richard B. Hubbard and James P. Douglas.
- Second Colored Baptist Church, today’s True Vine, is foundedNear the railroad tracks, between North Bonner and Oakwood Cemetery.
- The first railroad reaches TylerThe Houston and Great Northern, in 1873 or 1874.
- Gas lamps light the squareAfter kerosene lanterns, “elegant gas lamps.”
- Tyler’s first fair, as the city’s survey dates itA mile-long race track; a 75-acre fairground the next year.
- Christ Episcopal Church builds its first churchOn North Bois d’Arc at West Locust, with 34 members.
- The new Court of Criminal Appeals sits in TylerFrom its start until 1908, says a 1992 state marker.
- The Governor Hubbard brings in the Tyler Tap’s first trainOn October 1, 1877, the Tyler Tap’s only locomotive, the Governor Hubbard, steamed into Tyler with the line’s first train.
- The first recorded sale of rose plants near TylerThe Shamburgers of Pine Springs sold bushes for $1.50.
- The railroad puts its shops and hospital in TylerMachine shops and a hospital for the Texas and St. Louis Railway.
1880s19 cards
- Tyler’s Catholics become a parish200 members in 1880; many early parishioners were Irish railroad workers.
- Smith County’s fourth jail goes upLater the Lewis Hotel, until 1986.
- Tyler’s first fire departmentA 25-member volunteer company under John B. Douglas.
- Tyler Colored High School, called the first known Black schoolA private school with John F. Anderson as principal.
- Tyler’s first public school opensIn the former East Texas Institute; Hubbard School followed in 1886.
- Voters approve a water plant on Victory LakeA private pond on Turtle Creek; Lake Bellwood followed in 1894.
- Land is bought for a Jewish cemeteryBought by Hyman Liebreich, Abe Harris and Jacob Lipstate.
- By 1885: a waterworks, an opera house and an ice factoryTwo banks and two weekly newspapers, too.
- Tyler’s first ice factory, as the city’s survey tells itBefore it, ice came from Missouri and only the wealthy could afford it.
- The Grande Opera House opensRudolph Bergfeld helped open it.
- Moore Grocery, Tyler’s first wholesale groceryFrom a market on East Ferguson to a three-story brick warehouse.
- Congregation Beth El is founded53 men; their first temple was dedicated in 1889.
- Calvary Baptist, the first known white suburban churchA mission in north Tyler; the mother church became First Baptist.
- The Cotton Belt’s hospital for railroad workersAt West Elm Street and the tracks, for 17 years.
- Electric light comes to TylerJ. D. Moody, F. L. Dilley and John Durst form the power company.
- West End Negro School, Tyler’s first public school for Black childrenTyler’s first public school for African Americans, the wood-frame West End Negro School at Herndon and Front streets, was paid for with a $6,000 bond issue after a committee of Black residents asked for it.
- Cedar Street Methodist is organized as Tyler City MissionIt began as a Sunday school in a new neighborhood north of town.
- Savas Xydias, one of Tyler’s first Middle Eastern residentsHe arrived in 1889 and opened a bakery in 1890.
- St. James CME, the oldest surviving Black church building in TylerAt 408 North Border Avenue; bricked and remodeled about 1920.
1890s12 cards
- Horace Chilton, Texas’ first native-born U.S. senatorHorace Chilton, a lawyer, was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1891 by Gov. James Hogg and was Texas’ first native-born U.S. senator.
- A brick church called the first in Texas built by Black TexansBethlehem Baptist, on West Front Street, 1891.
- Patterson’s 5 Acre, a subdivision for Black buyersLots sold to Ezekiel Williams, Daniel Furch and others.
- Hispanic families appear in the city directoryDomingo Garcia, listed as Mexican, ran a restaurant at Broadway and Erwin.
- The Lake Bellwood dam, one of the earliest of its kindA hydraulic-fill dam for the waterworks; it cost $1,140.
- Texas College opens with six studentsCreated and supported by St. James CME Church.
- Telephone service comes to TylerTwo phone companies until the 1940s.
- Congregation Ahavath Achim is formedA wooden synagogue in 1910; Conservative from 1956.
- The Cotton Belt, called the first Southwest railroad to burn oilWood-fired locomotives, converted to Corsicana oil.
- Moving pictures are shown in Tyler for the first timeSponsored by a Methodist church; adults paid 35 cents.
- Five women’s clubs start a subscription libraryFree to the public by 1901; the Carnegie Library followed in 1904.
- Tyler Commercial College files its charterIts marker says it grew to be the nation’s largest commercial college.
1900s12 cards
- The Tyler Chamber of Commerce is createdRudolph Bergfeld a director; Jacob Lipstate among its organizers.
- The East Texas Conservatory of Music opensEstelle Burns and the pianist Juan Roure; it ran until 1910.
- The Carnegie Library, Tyler’s first public library buildingThe fifteenth of 34 Carnegie libraries in Texas.
- A Baptist academy opens, later Butler CollegeNamed for its founder, Rev. C. M. Butler, at his death in 1924.
- Texas College organizes its first college-level classUntil then it taught the common-school grades.
- Red brick goes down on Tyler’s streetsThe city’s documentation says July 2, 1906; another account, around 1912.
- Sarah Bernhardt plays the Grand Opera HouseThe year before the house burned.
- W. C. Stallings, the nation’s first agent for a single countyOn November 12, 1906, at a meeting in an opera house near the Smith County Courthouse attended by Dr. Seaman A. Knapp of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, W. C. Stallings of the Dixie community became the first county agent in Texas and the first in the nation to serve only one county.
- Tyler becomes a cityThen, after a 1915 election, a manager-commission government.
- The Tyler Gas Company begins supplying gasAfter failed attempts from 1887; natural gas from 1925.
- Smith County builds a three-story courthouseIt served until the present courthouse was built in 1954.
- J. J. Ray, Tyler’s first police officerLater its first chief; uniforms came in 1932.
1910s8 cards
- The city runs a public hospitalBought and repaired for $3,500; later called the “old pesthouse.”
- The East Texas Fair Association is foundedThen a permanent fairground on 75 acres of city parkland.
- The city’s first known money for parks$25,000 set aside; Bergfeld Park was among the land bought.
- The Tyler Elbertas, a minor league team named for a peachClass D, in the South Central League.
- The city council approves buying Bergfeld ParkRudolph Bergfeld offers the land for $4,000; the council approves.
- Tyler Traction runs its first streetcar, to the fairAt the end of September 1913, the Tyler Traction Company’s first streetcar headed west on Elm Street to the fairgrounds, and more than 1,300 people rode the cars for that year’s fair opening.
- The first train carload of rose bushes shipsBy the 1940s, more than half the nation’s rose bushes grew within ten miles of Tyler.
- Voters fund the county’s first paved roadsA $1,000,000 bond; the first concrete road followed in 1921.
1920s11 cards
- Emmett Scott High School is completedNamed for Booker T. Washington’s private secretary; closed by court order in 1970.
- Spanish surnames multiply in the city directoriesMost lived south of the Cotton Belt tracks, east of The Levee.
- The Dixie Highway, the county’s first hard-surface roadTyler to Winona, of iron ore, gravel, asphalt and limestone.
- Citizens National Bank builds Tyler’s first “skyscraper”In 1924 Citizens National Bank built Tyler’s first “skyscraper,” an eight-story building.
- Martin Hall goes up at Texas CollegeThe oldest intact building on the campus.
- The Tyler Trojans join the East Texas LeagueThey played on and off until 1955.
- Tyler Junior College opens at Tyler High SchoolOpens with 93 students and nine faculty members.
- Wood T. Brookshire opens a grocery on the squareA 2,500-square-foot store on the courthouse square.
- The fair’s first “Colored Day,” after a petitionAt the request of African American residents, who presented a petition, the East Texas Fair Association added a “Colored Day” to the fair in 1928.
- Maurice Shamburger plants the first azaleas along Lindsey LaneThe start of Tyler’s azalea tradition, in a test garden.
- The Tyler Morning Telegraph debutsIt traces its roots to the weekly Courier, founded in 1877.
1930s19 cards
- Tyler adopts its first city planJust as the oil boom began; it was updated in 1945.
- Radio station KGKB moves to TylerNow KYZS 1490, the oldest AM license in town, Scott Fybush says.
- The first producing oil well in Smith CountyBrought in near Arp by Guy Vernon Lewis.
- Tyler’s airport opens on Highway 64Named Rhodes Field in 1934, then Pounds Field in World War II.
- People’s Bank raises a 15-story towerArt Deco, at North College and West Erwin.
- Texas College is accredited as a four-year collegeRenamed Phillips University in 1909, then Texas College again.
- The Woman’s Building is completedMeeting rooms, an auditorium and a library for the Woman’s Forum.
- Margaret Copeland is crowned the first Rose QueenCrowned in 1933, the year of the first rose festival.
- The first rose festival opens in TylerOrganized in six weeks, with a parade and a Rose Queen.
- Tyler Barber College, called the country’s first for African AmericansHenry Miller Morgan, born in Tyler’s St. Louis community in 1895, opened Tyler Barber College at 212 East Erwin Street.
- Dr. Archie S. Senate moves his practice to East ErwinOn the 200 block, where Black entrepreneurs bought buildings.
- Tyler Pipe, an iron foundry, dates to 1935Cast iron soil pipe and fittings, made in Tyler.
- Church women start a day care for low-income familiesProtestant, Catholic and Jewish women, working together.
- Sam Greenberg’s smokehouse, the start of Greenberg TurkeysBuilt to prepare kosher geese for his family.
- Mother Frances Hospital opens a day earlyMother Frances Hospital opened in Tyler on March 18, 1937, a day earlier than planned, to care for victims of the New London School explosion.
- The Mayfair Club opens for the Queen’s BallA building at the fairgrounds, leased by promoter Max Gilfillan.
- Live rose bushes fill the Rose Show for the first timeA formal “colonial garden” of more than 1,000 growing bushes.
- City Hall, the first building to hold all the city’s offices212 North Bonner Avenue, completed in 1938.
- The Blackstone Building holds Tyler’s first union bus terminalArt Deco on North Broadway, with oil companies upstairs.
1940s14 cards
- The Ella Reid Library, once the Negro Public LibraryChartered and supported by Tyler’s African American community.
- The city’s survey dates Tyler’s first Black officers to the 1940sAssigned to Black neighborhoods; integration followed in the 1960s.
- An Army Signal Corps school trains at Tyler Commercial CollegeIts first class began radio training in April 1942.
- Construction begins on Camp FanninAn infantry-replacement training center, ten miles northeast of Tyler.
- Prisoners of war arrive at Camp FanninMen of the Afrika Korps; the camp held more than 1,000.
- Voters create a separate junior college districtA tax levy and a bond issue for its own campus.
- Delta flies from Tyler againService resumed in 1946 and ran until 1957.
- Texas College houses a campus of Tyler Junior CollegeFrom 1946 to 1966.
- The Tyler Foundation and a rose research foundation startHelp for new businesses, and research for rose growers.
- Camp Fannin becomes a tuberculosis sanatorium122 patients arrived by train from Kerrville.
- The Apache Roses perform for the first timeForty young women, at a TJC football game.
- The first Black attorney to try a case in the county courthouseHe won, in the 7th Judicial District Court.
- Bergfeld Center, called Tyler’s first suburban shopping centerThe city’s National Register documentation calls the late-1940s Bergfeld Square “Tyler’s first suburban shopping center” in one passage, and Bergfeld Center, opened in 1949 on South Broadway, “one of Tyler’s first suburban shopping centers” in another.
- First water fills the original Lake TylerThe original lake is on Prairie Creek.
1950s5 cards
- Tyler Civic Theatre opens a building for theatre in the roundWhat the theatre calls the nation’s first building of its kind.
- The Tyler Municipal Rose Garden officially opensNearly 3,000 bushes, donated by local nurseries.
- KLTV Channel 7 signs onFounded by Lucille Buford, whom KLTV calls “the L in KLTV.”
- Elvis Presley plays the Mayfair ClubIn 1955 a young Elvis Presley, touring with the Louisiana Hayride, played the Mayfair Club at the Tyler fairgrounds three times.
- Andrew Melontree Sr., a first in the hospital laboratoriesA lab technician and a laboratory director, both in 1956.
1960s1 cards
1970s5 cards
- Judge Justice rules that Texas must desegregate its schoolsUnited States v. Texas, 1970.
- A federal judge orders Tyler’s schools desegregatedJudge William Wayne Justice; the case closed in 2016.
- Tyler State College is foundedToday’s UT Tyler, founded as Tyler State College.
- The chest hospital joins the University of Texas SystemRenamed the University of Texas Health Center at Tyler.
- Plyler v. Doe begins in TylerTyler ISD began charging $1,000 for each undocumented child in the 1977–78 school year.
1980s2 cards
1990s2 cards
2000s3 cards
- JoAnn Hampton, in her words the first Black woman commissionerPrecinct 4, from January 1, 2003.
- Barbara Bass, Tyler’s first woman mayorIn May 2008 Barbara Bass won the Tyler mayor’s race with a little more than 60 percent of the vote, making her the city’s first woman mayor.
- Heritage Neighborhood No. 1, Tyler’s first local historic overlay18 properties at College Avenue and Lindsey Lane.
2010s1 cards
2020s3 cards
- Viva La Rosa brings a quinceañera float to the Rose ParadeStarted by immigration lawyer Ginger Young.
- The UT Tyler School of Medicine seats its first classThe UT Tyler School of Medicine’s first class of 40 students received white coats in July 2023.
- The East Texas State Fair adds its first PRCA-sanctioned rodeoThe 2026 rodeo ran September 25 to 27.
Undated9 cards
- Bethlehem First Baptist, Tyler’s first Black Baptist congregationIt first met in the basement of the Smith County Courthouse.
- The Cotton Belt, called the first railroad to go all dieselSo says its Tyler-based president’s memoir.
- The Douglas Addition, the first with a park and curving streetsMost of it did not develop until the 1930s.
- McDonald Lorance, Tyler’s first mayorMcDonald Lorance served as Tyler’s first mayor.
- Budding roses on dog-rose stock, called a first for local nurserymenIt widened the varieties that could be grown.
- Gustavo Ramirez, as of 2019 the only Hispanic elected to the councilHis years on the council are not given.
- Ira Brown, called Tyler’s first Black policeman in a headlineKETK’s story itself called him one of the first.
- KLTV calls its founder the first woman to own and operate a TV stationThe station’s own words about Lucille Buford.
- Quincy Beavers, Smith County’s first Black judgeA justice of the peace for 28 years, until 2022.
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