Murphey the Jeweler

Murphey the Jeweler closed on Christmas Eve 2019, at 3 p.m., after more than 150 years. The Tyler Morning Telegraph reported that owner Kim Benson, a 20-year employee who bought the business from the Murphey family two years earlier, announced it on Facebook on December 10. Business had declined for about four years, and nine months of parking lot construction at its shopping center hurt sales further. The store had moved from downtown's Spring Street to the Broadway Market Center and then to Times Square, on South Broadway.

What the plaque says

Murphey the Jeweler A native of North Carolina, Archibald Michael Murphey (1836-1886) married Elizabeth Findley in Rusk, Texas, in 1853. By 1868, they had moved to Tyler. Murphey opened his jewelry business on Ferguson and Broadway in January of that year. Murphey later indicated he had begun as a watchmaker as early as 1851, possibly as an apprentice to his father, who was a native of Ireland. Murphey's sons, Arch (1866-1888), Orville (b. 1868), and Pinkney H. (1870-1925), succeeded their father as jewelers and continued to operate his business. A younger son, George Reaves Murphey (1874-1939), had taken over the jewelry store by the early years of the twentieth century. He moved the business to this site in 1919. Murphey the Jeweler has operated as a family business throughout its history. The store has always offered selections of American and Swiss watches, clocks, and diamonds. Advertisements from the early years also boasted selections of sterling silver flatware, as well as a full line of pianos and organs. As one of the oldest retail establishments in East Texas, Murphey the Jeweler has played an important role in Tyler's commercial history. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 3.9 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 4.4 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 7.4 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• Tyler State Park — 13 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• Colonel Richard B. Hubbard — 1.1 mi
• Near Site of C.S.A. Ordnance Plant — 2.7 mi
• Rudolph Bergfeld — 2.8 mi
• Tyler Junior College — 3.0 mi