Last updated: June 21, 2024
Place
Tyler Municipal Rose Garden
Photograph by Terri Myers, courtesy of Texas State Historic Preservation Office
Quick Facts
Location:
420 Rose Park Drive Tyler, Texas
Significance:
Entertainment/Recreation; Landscape Architecture
Designation:
Listed in the National Register – Reference Number 100003539
MANAGED BY:
The Tyler Municipal Rose Garden, located at 420 Rose Park Drive in central Tyler, Smith County, Texas, features thousands of rose bushes arranged as a formal landscape with lawns, concrete walkways, and water features. Initially designed by architect Keith Maxwell and later shaped by landscape architect Henry Thompson, the property is noteworthy as a largely intact example of a public rose garden that gained favor in American cities in the early and mid-20th century. Construction of the garden began in 1938 and continued until 1941, when World War II brought a halt to nonessential projects. After the war construction began again and the garden was open to the public in 1952.
The Tyler Municipal Rose Garden was a natural outgrowth of the city’s location at the center of a thriving rose district that emerged in East Texas in the early 20th century. The region’s climate and soil were ideal for growing roses and commercial nurseries sprang up in and around Tyler to meet the growing demand for roses which had become tremendously popular in the country. The Tyler Rose Garden was also part of a larger, national context in which Progressive Era social reforms and New Deal public works programs resulted in thousands of city, state, and national parks, including dozens of municipal rose gardens throughout the country in the 1920s and 1930s. Largely due to its association with the local rose industry and the Texas Rose Festival, the Tyler Municipal Rose Garden grew and thrived in the postwar period when so many other municipal gardens failed.
Despite its early origins in the 1840s, Smith County rose cultivation remained more of a pastime than a commercially viable agricultural crop through the mid-19th century. By the close of the century, however, the demand for roses increased dramatically as ornamental gardening became popular for a growing class of Americans with “leisure time,” a concept unknown to earlier generations. Some spent their free time creating ornamental gardens of their own, while others visited public garden parks and private estates, many of which included or were devoted entirely to roses. By 1917, Smith County was producing field-grown roses in sufficient quantities to be sold on a much larger, commercial scale. As Smith County’s reputation for superior roses spread; demand increased to the extent that roses became a vital part of its agriculture-based economy. By the mid-1920s, nurseries in the Tyler were producing millions of growing rose bushes and the city became a Mecca for rose enthusiasts and commercial buyers from around the country. Even during the Great Depression, the rose industry helped sustain Smith County’s economy, including a successful Tyler Rose Festival in 1933.
The rise of municipal rose gardens was an outgrowth of Progressive-Era movements and policies including the “City Beautiful” movement that was based on the philosophy that beauty, especially natural beauty, had the power to remedy the ills of modern life, especially in industrialized cities which were perceived as overcrowded and increasingly noisy, polluted, and ridden with crime. In the summer of 1938, Tyler-area resident and architect, Keith Maxwell, came to the Texas Rose Festival Association with a realistic plan for building the city rose garden under the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal program to relieve unemployment by putting men to work on public projects, including city parks, during the Great Depression.
In the early 1940s, Federal monies slated for WPA projects were being diverted to national defense projects and the city rushed to complete the rose garden before they were cut off for domestic programs altogether. As soon as the war was over, Tyler residents turned their attention back to domestic problems, including the rose garden. In 1945, the city hired well-known city plan engineers, Koch and Fowler, to prepare a city plan to guide Tyler through the early postwar years. The plan included recommendations on park development, stating that it was “quite fitting that the City of Tyler should have an outstanding rose garden since it is considered the center of the rose growing industry in East Texas.”
Finally, after many false starts and interruption by the war, the Tyler Municipal Rose Garden opened to the public on June 16, 1952. It was an immediate success, appealing not only to rose fanciers – of whom there were plenty – but to the public at large, including families with children. Tyler residents were positively enchanted with the long-awaited garden, poetically describing its “finely terraced gardens . . . [and] graveled walkways, fountains and greenery . . . [and] great show of modern roses . . . hybrid teas, floribundas, and grandifloras.” The property retains its historic appearance and character to a remarkable degree and continues to be operated by the City of Tyler and open to the public daily.
The Tyler Municipal Rose Garden was a natural outgrowth of the city’s location at the center of a thriving rose district that emerged in East Texas in the early 20th century. The region’s climate and soil were ideal for growing roses and commercial nurseries sprang up in and around Tyler to meet the growing demand for roses which had become tremendously popular in the country. The Tyler Rose Garden was also part of a larger, national context in which Progressive Era social reforms and New Deal public works programs resulted in thousands of city, state, and national parks, including dozens of municipal rose gardens throughout the country in the 1920s and 1930s. Largely due to its association with the local rose industry and the Texas Rose Festival, the Tyler Municipal Rose Garden grew and thrived in the postwar period when so many other municipal gardens failed.
Despite its early origins in the 1840s, Smith County rose cultivation remained more of a pastime than a commercially viable agricultural crop through the mid-19th century. By the close of the century, however, the demand for roses increased dramatically as ornamental gardening became popular for a growing class of Americans with “leisure time,” a concept unknown to earlier generations. Some spent their free time creating ornamental gardens of their own, while others visited public garden parks and private estates, many of which included or were devoted entirely to roses. By 1917, Smith County was producing field-grown roses in sufficient quantities to be sold on a much larger, commercial scale. As Smith County’s reputation for superior roses spread; demand increased to the extent that roses became a vital part of its agriculture-based economy. By the mid-1920s, nurseries in the Tyler were producing millions of growing rose bushes and the city became a Mecca for rose enthusiasts and commercial buyers from around the country. Even during the Great Depression, the rose industry helped sustain Smith County’s economy, including a successful Tyler Rose Festival in 1933.
The rise of municipal rose gardens was an outgrowth of Progressive-Era movements and policies including the “City Beautiful” movement that was based on the philosophy that beauty, especially natural beauty, had the power to remedy the ills of modern life, especially in industrialized cities which were perceived as overcrowded and increasingly noisy, polluted, and ridden with crime. In the summer of 1938, Tyler-area resident and architect, Keith Maxwell, came to the Texas Rose Festival Association with a realistic plan for building the city rose garden under the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal program to relieve unemployment by putting men to work on public projects, including city parks, during the Great Depression.
In the early 1940s, Federal monies slated for WPA projects were being diverted to national defense projects and the city rushed to complete the rose garden before they were cut off for domestic programs altogether. As soon as the war was over, Tyler residents turned their attention back to domestic problems, including the rose garden. In 1945, the city hired well-known city plan engineers, Koch and Fowler, to prepare a city plan to guide Tyler through the early postwar years. The plan included recommendations on park development, stating that it was “quite fitting that the City of Tyler should have an outstanding rose garden since it is considered the center of the rose growing industry in East Texas.”
Finally, after many false starts and interruption by the war, the Tyler Municipal Rose Garden opened to the public on June 16, 1952. It was an immediate success, appealing not only to rose fanciers – of whom there were plenty – but to the public at large, including families with children. Tyler residents were positively enchanted with the long-awaited garden, poetically describing its “finely terraced gardens . . . [and] graveled walkways, fountains and greenery . . . [and] great show of modern roses . . . hybrid teas, floribundas, and grandifloras.” The property retains its historic appearance and character to a remarkable degree and continues to be operated by the City of Tyler and open to the public daily.