Named for a President: The Founding of Tyler, Texas

There is something quietly ironic about Tyler, Texas. The city carries the name of a president no party ever truly claimed. John Tyler served as the tenth president of the United States after inheriting the office when William Henry Harrison died in eighteen forty-one.

He was promptly expelled from the Whig Party that had nominated him, refused recognition by the Democrats, and left Washington without a friend in either house. Yet here in East Texas, the county seat of Smith County bears his name, because Texas and John Tyler found each other at exactly the right moment. Tyler had championed the annexation of Texas with unusual intensity, pushing through the joint resolution that brought the Republic of Texas into the Union in eighteen forty-five, just days before he left the White House.

Texans remembered that. When the state legislature created Smith County in eighteen forty-six and authorized a county seat, they called it Tyler in his honor. The physical town took shape quickly.

In February of eighteen forty-seven, commissioners purchased one hundred acres from a landowner named Edgar Pollett for one hundred and fifty dollars. They laid out twenty-eight blocks around a central square in the standard Texas grid. A Methodist congregation organized in eighteen forty-six; the First Baptist Church came in eighteen forty-eight.

By eighteen fifty-six, a traveler remarked that Tyler was already a place of considerable importance. The city incorporated in January of eighteen fifty. From a few dozen acres bought for pocket change, a city of more than a hundred thousand people grew.