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TYLERby
Robert E. Reed Jr.
Arcadia Publishing’s Postcard History series. |
Title:
Tyler
(Arcadia’s Postcard History series)
Author: Robert E. Reed
Jr.
ISBN-10: 0738571784
ISBN-13: 9780738571782
#
of Pages: 128
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Release Date:
September 28, 2009
List Price: $21.99 |
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| The
book contains 226 vintage postcards covering Tyler's history during the first
seven decades of the twentieth century. They are separated into nine chapters:
Street Scenes and Buildings; Courthouses and the Public Square; Public Buildings;
Education; Religion; Residences; Festivals, Fairs, and Parades; Businesses; and
Recreation and Organizations. |
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| Located
on the southwest corner of North Bois D’Arc Avenue and West Bow Street, North
Side School was built in 1889 as Tyler’s first ward school. It was later renamed
Marsh School to honor Colonel Bryan Marsh, a local Confederate veteran
who was a Texas Ranger and Smith County sheriff for eighteen years. This school
was demolished in 1917 and rebuilt on the same site. None of the original four
ward schools of Marsh, Douglas, Bonner and Gary featured lighting of any kind;
hence, they all had a large number of windows for daytime illumination. Also,
all of these schools were limited to white students, for there was the West End
Colored School built in 1888 and the East End Colored School established in a
rented building in 1894. This panoramic real photo postcard measures 11 inches
by 3-1/2 inches. |
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| Shown
is the Prohibition Parade held on June 5, 1909. The postcard is looking
east along Ferguson Street, from the intersection with North College Avenue, and
states that the votes cast for Prohibition were 2564, with 1650 votes against.
This must have been a revote, for prohibition was achieved in Smith County in
1901, long before the 18th Amendment imposed it nationwide in 1919. |
| The
Brown Derby Drive-In Café, located at 1905 South Broadway Avenue, was opened
in December 1935. The entire restaurant was originally enclosed in the hat-shaped
structure, but in 1936 the kitchen was moved into a new building in the rear,
and the entire “hat” was made a dining room. The restaurant closed in early 1953
and became a used car lot by 1956. The buildings were demolished in 1958. |
| No colleges
existed to train African-Americans the skills required to obtain a barber’s license
until Henry Morgan opened Tyler Barber College, located at 212 East Erwin
Street, in 1934. It became a successful chain with locations in major cities throughout
the United States and reportedly featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not column
as a corporation headquartered in a small town with a branch in New York City.
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| These
postcards both show the same section of North Spring Avenue, but from opposite
directions and different times. The top view is early 1910s looking south, from
the intersection with East Ferguson Street. The only readable sign is for The
Steger Land Company to the far left, but the Queen Theater is in the right adjoining
building. Tyler’s first Brookshire’s store opened in 1928 around mid-block. The
bottom view is late 1930s looking north, with East Erwin Street crossing in the
immediate foreground. Along Spring Avenue, a couple of blocks further north, were
boarding houses, two of which were closed in 1936 as “bawdy houses.” |
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| Civic
leaders founded the Tyler Commercial Club on June 2, 1900. Located on the
southeast corner of South Spring Avenue and East Erwin Street in the Durst and
Bergfeld Building constructed in the early 1890s, it was the forerunner of the
Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce and the Tyler Economic Development Council. This
building also housed the Elk’s Club on the second floor. On the far right of this
postcard, the Grand Opera House is partially visible. A devastating fire struck
this corner on April 6, 1907. The postcard below, with the exact same view, shows
the empty shell that remained of the building after the fire. |
| After
a series of three log cabins over five years served as the county courthouse,
the cornerstone was laid in December 1851, for a new courthouse,
Tyler’s first brick structure. The two-story building was 40 feet by 70 feet and
sat in the middle of the square. In 1876 a third story was added, as well as a
clock tower that never had a timepiece installed. |
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| The Locust
Street Fire Station was built on the northwest corner of North College Avenue
and West Locust Street in 1886. Over the years the structure at times concurrently
served other purposes, such as the police department and city hall. This postcard
includes a view of the early horse-drawn fire department. Visible atop the building
in the above postcard is a bell used to summon the firefighters when they were
not at the station. The bell was originally used on the first building that housed
Marvin Methodist Church from 1852 to 1889. After the church moved and no longer
had a belfry, they loaned the bell to the fire department. When this building
was demolished in 1955, the bell was returned to the church, and it is currently
displayed on their east lawn along South Bois D’Arc Avenue. |
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| Carnegie
Public Library, located at 125 South College Avenue, opened October 3, 1904.
It was constructed with a $15,000 donation from philanthropist Andrew
Carnegie, while private funds paid for the lot and furnishings. With two large
rooms on the first floor and an auditorium called Carnegie Hall on the second,
the library was designed to hold 12,000 books and be operated by one librarian,
paid $35 monthly. An expansion in 1936 doubled its size, courtesy of a Public
Works Administration grant. Library service for African Americans was segregated
until the 1960s. A new public library opened at 201 South College Avenue on May
5, 1980. The old library, one of a dwindling number of original Carnegie
Library buildings still standing in Texas, now
serves as the museum and archives of the Smith County Historical Society. |
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| While
mass had been celebrated for a number of years before, the first Catholic church
was dedicated in 1882 on the northeast corner of North College Avenue and
West Locust Street, shown above. It was called Church of the Immaculate Conception,
with French Reverend J.S. Chaland preaching to a mainly Irish congregation employed
by the railroad. After a fund collection drive of fifteen years, construction
started in 1934 on a new church, on the southwest corner of South Broadway Avenue
and West Front Street. The parish, now known as Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception,
was so eager to move in that it actually did by Christmas 1934, before construction
was completed. The actual dedication occurred on March 17, 1935. Soon afterward,
the 1882 frame church was moved to West Lollar Street for use as a mission parish. |
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| Mayer
& Schmidt moved their department store to the northwest corner of North College
Avenue and West Ferguson Street in 1893. The store, shown above, was built on
land made available when Alfred Ferguson’s hotel burned. The new store was considered
the area’s most spacious and luxurious. In 1956 it became an early component of
the Dillard’s chain, but operated under its original name at this location until
1974. |
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| Truck
farming is the cultivation of fruit or vegetable crops for transport to distant
markets where they cannot be grown due to climate. In Tyler’s case, most of the
crops were canned or iced down and shipped northward on the Cotton Belt Railroad.
One of the early important truck crops for the area was peaches. Shown on this
postcard is the gathering of Elberta peaches. In 1889 alone Smith County
harvested 104,283 bushels of peaches. However, disaster loomed on the horizon,
arriving just after the next century started. San Jose scale, a major peach blight,
soon struck, and by 1914 all peach orchards were killed. Most peach growers switched
to the growing rose industry. |
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| In August
1933 Marion Wilcox and other Tyler Garden Club members approached Russell Rhodes,
the Chamber of Commerce manager, to insist he somehow publicize local rose growing.
With assistance from local attorney Thomas Ramey, the effort evolved into the
Rose Festival, with Thomas as the first president. The festival dates were
set for October 11-12, leaving only six weeks to get it organized. Starting the
first day at 2:30 pm, a 2-mile-long parade circled the downtown square. It is
interesting to note that the Rose Queen, Margaret Copeland, was not chosen until
that night, and her afternoon coronation occurred on the last day in Bergfeld
Park. This postcard shows Rose Queen Dorothy Bell’s float for the 1939 Rose
Parade. | |
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