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No. 1: Smith County’s commissioners’ court meets for the first time
No. 2: The state’s inventory counts five courthouses in Tyler
No. 3: Tyler is authorized as a county seat
No. 4: Smith County holds its first election
No. 5: The county’s first court session meets in a log cabin
No. 6: A log courthouse, Tyler’s first civic building
No. 7: Tyler gets its first post office
No. 8: Commissioners lay out the town around a square
No. 9: Marvin Methodist, called the first church in Smith County
No. 10: First Baptist Church of Tyler is organized
No. 11: The Masons, Tyler’s first fraternal order
No. 12: Tyler’s oldest recorded school: four boys, west of town
No. 13: Tyler is incorporated
No. 14: A female seminary opens, later Charnwood Institute
No. 15: The Tyler Telegraph, the county’s first newspaper
No. 16: The 1852 courthouse, whose bricks went into later ones
No. 17: The Methodists’ Sunday school, called “the first”
No. 18: Oakwood Cemetery’s oldest marked grave
No. 19: Tyler University opens as a Baptist academy
No. 20: The first try at a railroad: a charter, and no track
No. 21: The first brick buildings in Smith County
No. 22: The first known record of a Disciples of Christ church
No. 23: Camp Ford becomes a prison camp
No. 24: Missionary work begins what becomes Christ Episcopal Church
No. 25: The first school for Black children in the Tyler area
No. 26: Murphey the Jeweler opens at Ferguson and Broadway
No. 27: Bonner and Williams, Tyler’s first bank
No. 28: First Presbyterian Church is organized
No. 29: St. James CME Church is organized
No. 30: The Tyler Tap Railroad is chartered
No. 31: Second Colored Baptist Church, today’s True Vine, is founded
No. 32: The first railroad reaches Tyler
No. 33: Gas lamps light the square
No. 34: Tyler’s first fair, as the city’s survey dates it
No. 35: Christ Episcopal Church builds its first church
No. 36: The new Court of Criminal Appeals sits in Tyler
No. 37: The Governor Hubbard brings in the Tyler Tap’s first train
No. 38: The first recorded sale of rose plants near Tyler
No. 39: The railroad puts its shops and hospital in Tyler
No. 40: Tyler’s Catholics become a parish
No. 41: Smith County’s fourth jail goes up
No. 42: Tyler’s first fire department
No. 43: Tyler Colored High School, called the first known Black school
No. 44: Tyler’s first public school opens
No. 45: Voters approve a water plant on Victory Lake
No. 46: Land is bought for a Jewish cemetery
No. 47: By 1885: a waterworks, an opera house and an ice factory
No. 48: Tyler’s first ice factory, as the city’s survey tells it
No. 49: The Grande Opera House opens
No. 50: Moore Grocery, Tyler’s first wholesale grocery
No. 51: Congregation Beth El is founded
No. 52: Calvary Baptist, the first known white suburban church
No. 53: The Cotton Belt’s hospital for railroad workers
No. 54: Electric light comes to Tyler
No. 55: West End Negro School, Tyler’s first public school for Black children
No. 56: Cedar Street Methodist is organized as Tyler City Mission
No. 57: Savas Xydias, one of Tyler’s first Middle Eastern residents
No. 58: St. James CME, the oldest surviving Black church building in Tyler
No. 59: Horace Chilton, Texas’ first native-born U.S. senator
No. 60: A brick church called the first in Texas built by Black Texans
No. 61: Patterson’s 5 Acre, a subdivision for Black buyers
No. 62: Hispanic families appear in the city directory
No. 63: The Lake Bellwood dam, one of the earliest of its kind
No. 64: Texas College opens with six students
No. 65: Telephone service comes to Tyler
No. 66: Congregation Ahavath Achim is formed
No. 67: The Cotton Belt, called the first Southwest railroad to burn oil
No. 68: Moving pictures are shown in Tyler for the first time
No. 69: Five women’s clubs start a subscription library
No. 70: Tyler Commercial College files its charter
No. 71: The Tyler Chamber of Commerce is created
No. 72: The East Texas Conservatory of Music opens
No. 73: The Carnegie Library, Tyler’s first public library building
No. 74: A Baptist academy opens, later Butler College
No. 75: Texas College organizes its first college-level class
No. 76: Red brick goes down on Tyler’s streets
No. 77: Sarah Bernhardt plays the Grand Opera House
No. 78: W. C. Stallings, the nation’s first agent for a single county
No. 79: Tyler becomes a city
No. 80: The Tyler Gas Company begins supplying gas
No. 81: Smith County builds a three-story courthouse
No. 82: J. J. Ray, Tyler’s first police officer
No. 83: The city runs a public hospital
No. 84: The East Texas Fair Association is founded
No. 85: The city’s first known money for parks
No. 86: The Tyler Elbertas, a minor league team named for a peach
No. 87: The city council approves buying Bergfeld Park
No. 88: Tyler Traction runs its first streetcar, to the fair
No. 89: The first train carload of rose bushes ships
No. 90: Voters fund the county’s first paved roads
No. 91: Emmett Scott High School is completed
No. 92: Spanish surnames multiply in the city directories
No. 93: The Dixie Highway, the county’s first hard-surface road
No. 94: Citizens National Bank builds Tyler’s first “skyscraper”
No. 95: Martin Hall goes up at Texas College
No. 96: The Tyler Trojans join the East Texas League
No. 97: Tyler Junior College opens at Tyler High School
No. 98: Wood T. Brookshire opens a grocery on the square
No. 99: The fair’s first “Colored Day,” after a petition
No. 100: Maurice Shamburger plants the first azaleas along Lindsey Lane
No. 101: The Tyler Morning Telegraph debuts
No. 102: Tyler adopts its first city plan
No. 103: Radio station KGKB moves to Tyler
No. 104: The first producing oil well in Smith County
No. 105: Tyler’s airport opens on Highway 64
No. 106: People’s Bank raises a 15-story tower
No. 107: Texas College is accredited as a four-year college
No. 108: The Woman’s Building is completed
No. 109: Margaret Copeland is crowned the first Rose Queen
No. 110: The first rose festival opens in Tyler
No. 111: Tyler Barber College, called the country’s first for African Americans
No. 112: Dr. Archie S. Senate moves his practice to East Erwin
No. 113: Tyler Pipe, an iron foundry, dates to 1935
No. 114: Church women start a day care for low-income families
No. 115: Sam Greenberg’s smokehouse, the start of Greenberg Turkeys
No. 116: Mother Frances Hospital opens a day early
No. 117: The Mayfair Club opens for the Queen’s Ball
No. 118: Live rose bushes fill the Rose Show for the first time
No. 119: City Hall, the first building to hold all the city’s offices
No. 120: The Blackstone Building holds Tyler’s first union bus terminal
No. 121: The Ella Reid Library, once the Negro Public Library
No. 122: The city’s survey dates Tyler’s first Black officers to the 1940s
No. 123: An Army Signal Corps school trains at Tyler Commercial College
No. 124: Construction begins on Camp Fannin
No. 125: Prisoners of war arrive at Camp Fannin
No. 126: Voters create a separate junior college district
No. 127: Delta flies from Tyler again
No. 128: Texas College houses a campus of Tyler Junior College
No. 129: The Tyler Foundation and a rose research foundation start
No. 130: Camp Fannin becomes a tuberculosis sanatorium
No. 131: The Apache Roses perform for the first time
No. 132: The first Black attorney to try a case in the county courthouse
No. 133: Bergfeld Center, called Tyler’s first suburban shopping center
No. 134: First water fills the original Lake Tyler
No. 135: Tyler Civic Theatre opens a building for theatre in the round
No. 136: The Tyler Municipal Rose Garden officially opens
No. 137: KLTV Channel 7 signs on
No. 138: Elvis Presley plays the Mayfair Club
No. 139: Andrew Melontree Sr., a first in the hospital laboratories
No. 140: Downtown trade declines for the first time
No. 141: Judge Justice rules that Texas must desegregate its schools
No. 142: A federal judge orders Tyler’s schools desegregated
No. 143: Tyler State College is founded
No. 144: The chest hospital joins the University of Texas System
No. 145: Plyler v. Doe begins in Tyler
No. 146: Andrew Melontree Sr., the county’s first Black commissioner
No. 147: Adopt-a-Highway starts in Tyler
No. 148: Herb Hayter, the police department’s first minority supervisor
No. 149: Charnwood becomes Tyler’s first National Register historic district
No. 150: JoAnn Hampton, in her words the first Black woman commissioner
No. 151: Barbara Bass, Tyler’s first woman mayor
No. 152: Heritage Neighborhood No. 1, Tyler’s first local historic overlay
No. 153: Stanley’s neon sign, called the first in Tyler to get a marker
No. 154: Viva La Rosa brings a quinceañera float to the Rose Parade
No. 155: The UT Tyler School of Medicine seats its first class
No. 156: The East Texas State Fair adds its first PRCA-sanctioned rodeo
No. 157: Bethlehem First Baptist, Tyler’s first Black Baptist congregation
No. 158: The Cotton Belt, called the first railroad to go all diesel
No. 159: The Douglas Addition, the first with a park and curving streets
No. 160: McDonald Lorance, Tyler’s first mayor
No. 161: Budding roses on dog-rose stock, called a first for local nurserymen
No. 162: Gustavo Ramirez, as of 2019 the only Hispanic elected to the council
No. 163: Ira Brown, called Tyler’s first Black policeman in a headline
No. 164: KLTV calls its founder the first woman to own and operate a TV station
No. 165: Quincy Beavers, Smith County’s first Black judge

Alt text Typed index card from Tyler Firsts.