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. 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. 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. Denied a trial and due process, Hillard was taken from law enforcement personnel by a white mob. 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. 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. 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
thumb|Downtown Tyler
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.
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.