Tyler in the 1870s13 cards: 3 firsts, 1 claimed first and 9 beginnings
- 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.