Town and land18 cards: 5 firsts and 13 beginnings
The founding of Tyler and its square, its neighborhoods and historic districts, and its water, light, gas and parks.
- Tyler is authorized as a county seatThe Texas Legislature creates Smith County and its county seat.
- Commissioners lay out the town around a squareA 100-acre site is bought for $150 and laid out in 28 blocks.
- Tyler is incorporatedIncorporated, and the county seat of Smith County.
- Gas lamps light the squareAfter kerosene lanterns, “elegant gas lamps.”
- Voters approve a water plant on Victory LakeA private pond on Turtle Creek; Lake Bellwood followed in 1894.
- By 1885: a waterworks, an opera house and an ice factoryTwo banks and two weekly newspapers, too.
- Electric light comes to TylerJ. D. Moody, F. L. Dilley and John Durst form the power company.
- Patterson’s 5 Acre, a subdivision for Black buyersLots sold to Ezekiel Williams, Daniel Furch and others.
- The Lake Bellwood dam, one of the earliest of its kindA hydraulic-fill dam for the waterworks; it cost $1,140.
- Telephone service comes to TylerTwo phone companies until the 1940s.
- The Tyler Gas Company begins supplying gasAfter failed attempts from 1887; natural gas from 1925.
- The city’s first known money for parks$25,000 set aside; Bergfeld Park was among the land bought.
- The city council approves buying Bergfeld ParkRudolph Bergfeld offers the land for $4,000; the council approves.
- Spanish surnames multiply in the city directoriesMost lived south of the Cotton Belt tracks, east of The Levee.
- First water fills the original Lake TylerThe original lake is on Prairie Creek.
- Charnwood becomes Tyler’s first National Register historic districtThe Charnwood Residential Historic District became Tyler’s first National Register historic district on August 20, 1999.
- Heritage Neighborhood No. 1, Tyler’s first local historic overlay18 properties at College Avenue and Lindsey Lane.
- The Douglas Addition, the first with a park and curving streetsMost of it did not develop until the 1930s.