Tyler is a city in and the county seat of Smith County, Texas, United States. As of 2020, the population is 105,995. Tyler is the 38th most populous city in Texas (as well as the most populous in Northeast Texas) and 289th in the United States. It is the principal city of the Tyler metropolitan statistical area, which is the 198th most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. and 16th in Texas after Waco and the College Station–Bryan areas, with a population of 233,479 in 2020. The city is named for John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States.
In 1985, the international Adopt-a-Highway movement began in Tyler. After appeals from local Texas Department of Transportation officials, the local Civitan International chapter adopted a two-mile (three kilometer) stretch of U.S. Route 69 to maintain. Drivers and other motorists traveling on this segment of U.S. 69 (between Tyler and nearby Lindale) will see brown road signs that read "First Adopt-A-Highway in the World".
Tyler is known as the "Rose Capital of America" (also the "Rose City" and the "Rose Capital of the World"), a nickname it earned from a long history of rose production, cultivation, and processing. It is home to the largest rose garden in the United States, a 14-acre public garden complex that has over 38,000 rose bushes of at least 500 different varieties. The Tyler Rose Garden Center is also home to the annual Texas Rose Festival which attracts thousands of tourists each October.
As Northeast Texas and Smith County's major economic, educational, financial, medical and cultural hub, Tyler is host to more than 20,000 higher-education students; the University of Texas at Tyler; a university health science center; and regional hospital systems. It is the headquarters for Brookshire Grocery Company and many other large employers. Tyler is also home to the Caldwell Zoo and Broadway Square Mall, and the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tyler and its Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
History
Founding and Civil War (1846–1865) Legal recognition of Tyler was initiated by an act of the state legislature on April 11, 1846. The Texas government created Smith County and authorized a county seat. The first plat designated a 28-block town site centered by a main square within a tract acquired by Smith County on 6 February 1847. The new town was named for President John Tyler, who advocated for the annexation of Texas by the United States. A log building on the square's north side served as a courthouse and public meeting hall until a brick courthouse displaced it in . The City of Tyler was incorporated on January 29, 1850.
Early religious and social institutions included the First Baptist Church and a Methodist church, a Masonic lodge and an Odd Fellows lodge, and Tyler's first newspaper. Though Tyler's early economy from – was based on agriculture, it was also well-diversified during this period. Logging was a second major industry, while complementary manufacturing included metalworking, milling wood, and leather tanning. As the seat of Smith County, the town also benefited from government activity.
The local agricultural economy relied on slave labor before the Civil War. In 1860, the population of enslaved people in Smith County was 4,982, the 4th most in east Texas. By 1860, Tyler held over 1,000 enslaved persons, which represented 35 percent of the town's population. There was strong support for secession and the Confederacy within Tyler, as a high percentage of its residents voted for secession and many of its men served in the Confederate States Army. The town was a secure enough location during the war for the Trans-Mississippi Department to establish the Tyler Ordnance Works for the resupply of its forces west of the Mississippi River.
Post–Civil War era (1865–1900) In 1870, Bonner and Williams established Tyler's first bank. When both the Texas and Pacific Railroad and the International Railroad (Texas) originally eschewed routes through Tyler, townspeople financed the Tyler Tap Railroad to link the town to the national rail grid. Ironically, before that 21-mile line to Big Sandy, Texas was completed in 1877, Tyler had already gotten its desired rail connection when the International–Great Northern Railroad built into town in 1874. Regardless, the Tyler Tap became the seed for the 725-mile-long Texas and St. Louis Railway, which in turn formed the core of the later St. Louis Southwestern Railway, commonly known as the Cotton Belt.
On October 29, 1895, an African American suspect named Robert Henry Hillard was burned at the stake in the Smith County Courthouse Square for the alleged murder of a nineteen-year-old white woman.Galveston Daily News. "Slowly Roasted." October 30, 1895.E. R. Bills. Black Holocaust: The Paris Horror and a Legacy of Texas Terror. Fort Worth, Texas: Eakin Press, 2015 Denied a trial and due process, Hillard was taken from law enforcement personnel by a white mob.Dallas Morning News. ""Roasted to Death." October 30, 1895. Hillard's executioners were never punished. Later, two entrepreneurs combined photographs from the actual lynching with others staged with actors and sold the 16-image production as a stereographic set. One of the original sets sits in the United States Library of Congress.
20th century to the present day Toward the end of the nineteenth century, fruit orchards emerged as an important business in the regional economy. Eighty percent of the county's agricultural revenue derived from cotton as it persisted as the dominant crop in the first decades of the twentieth century. Peaches were the principal fruit crop as the county fruit tree inventory surpassed one million by 1900. In 1912, Dan Davis, an African-American man suspected of attacking a sixteen-year-old white girl named Carrie Johnson, was burned at the stake in the Smith County Courthouse Square.The New York Times. "2,000 Aid in Burning Negro at the Stake." May 26, 1912.Granbury News. "Negro Meets Death at Stake in Tyler." October 30, 1912.Dallas Morning News. "Negro Meets Death at Stake in Tyler." May 26, 1912. Disease struck the peach trees, though, and local farmers moved toward growing roses by the 1920s. Twenty years later, most of the U.S. rose supply originated in the Tyler area.
In , the University of Texas system established the University of Texas at Tyler and Broadway Square Mall opened in .Paul T. Hellmann (2006). "Texas: Tyler". Historical Gazetteer of the United States. Taylor & Francis. . By 1980, the population grew to 70,508 and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tyler and East Texas Islamic Society were established in the following years."City Population History from 1850–2000: Tyler", Texas Almanac, Texas State Historical Association During the 2010 East Texas church burnings, two Tyler churches were destroyed, and historic preservation city planning began in 2016 as the population increased and the city continued development.
Geography The city of Tyler is in the Southern United States, in Northeast Texas. It is sometimes considered part of the wider Ark-La-Tex region where Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas meet. The city is approximately from Longview; from Marshall; from Dallas; from Texarkana; from the state capital of Austin; and from Shreveport, Louisiana.
Tyler is the seat of government of Smith County, and is surrounded by many suburban communities, including Whitehouse, Lindale, New Chapel Hill, Bullard, Edom, Brownsboro, Kilgore, Flint, and Chandler. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of , of which is land and is covered by water. Tyler is the principal city of the Greater Tyler metropolitan area, and a principal city in the Tyler–Longview area, a conurbation of the Tyler and Longview metropolitan and combined statistical areas.
Cityscape
Downtown architecture features the Art Deco and neoclassical styles, many dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Modernist- and postmodernist-era structures are also present throughout the cityscape.
Central Tyler is anchored by Brick Streets Historic District and Charnwood Residential Historic District, areas characterized by dense retail, restaurants, nightlife, and historic landmarks. Brick Streets Historic District is the largest geographic area of Tyler. It encompasses 29 blocks and primarily consists of buildings constructed in the 1900s. The district area is predominantly residential though it sometimes serves as a mix-use district. Brick Streets Historic District has brick-paved streets and stone-lined drainage channels. Nearby, Charnwood is Tyler's first historic district. It comprises 12 blocks of late 19th and early 20th century architecture.
Climate Tyler experiences weather typical of East Texas. The region is located in the humid subtropical climate typical of the American South.
Severe thunderstorms with heavy rain, hail, damaging winds and tornadoes occur in the area during the spring and summer months. Summer months are hot and humid, with maximum temperatures exceeding an average of 91 days per year, with high to very high relative average humidity. Tornadoes are pretty scary man look out.
The record high temperature for Tyler is , which occurred in 2011. The record low for Tyler is on February 16, 2021, during the February 2021 North American cold wave.
Demographics With a population of 2,423 at the 1880 census, the city of Tyler grew to become the most populous city in Northeast Texas, and remains one of the state's larger municipalities. The Tyler–Longview area had an estimated population of 416,662 in 2022, and when the U.S. Census Bureau released population estimates for 2022, Tyler was estimated to have a population of 109,286 as of July 1, 2022.
Racial and ethnic composition According to the United States Census Bureau, the city's ethnic makeup has become increasingly diverse, owing to white flight starting in the 1940s, immigration and internal migration. +Tyler city, Texas – Racial and ethnic compositionRace / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic)Pop 2000Pop 2010% 2000% 2010White alone (NH)46,48649,25250,78555.57%50.83%47.91%Black or African American alone (NH)22,15523,74224,12626.49%24.50%22.76%Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)1982842540.24%0.29%0.24%Asian alone (NH)8001,8072,9880.96%1.86%2.82%Pacific Islander alone (NH)1718390.02%0.02%0.04%Some Other Race alone (NH)521253520.06%0.13%0.33%Mixed race or Multiracial (NH)7081,1613,4280.85%1.20%3.23%Hispanic or Latino (any race)13,23420,51124,02315.82%21.17%22.66%Total83,65096,900105,995100.00%100.00%100.00%
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, Tyler had a population of 105,995, making it the most populous city in Northeast Texas and the 33rd most populous in Texas. The median age was 35.4 years. 22.3% of residents were under the age of 18 and 17.7% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 89.0 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 85.4 males age 18 and over.
99.8% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.2% lived in rural areas.
There were 41,836 households in Tyler, of which 29.0% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 41.1% were married-couple households, 18.3% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 35.0% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 31.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 46,320 housing units, of which 9.7% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.7% and the rental vacancy rate was 11.2%.
Tyler's metropolitan statistical area had 233,479 residents in 2020, remaining the second-largest in the region behind the Longview metropolitan area.