Smith County Rose Industry and the Tyler Rose Garden

Roses came to Smith County after fruit failed. The Handbook of Texas says a peach blight devastated the orchards of the late 1890s and many farmers turned to roses. It records the Shamburger family of Pine Springs selling rose bushes in 1879 and B. S. Shamburger planting 20,000 bushes to the acre in 1904. A University of Texas at Tyler study dates the first train carload to 1917 and counts about 300 growers producing more than 30 million plants a year in the late 1950s, before irrigation elsewhere erased the rainfall advantage in the 1970s.

What the plaque says

Smith County Rose Industry and the Tyler Rose Garden A combination of sandy soil, year-round rainfall, and a long growing season make the Tyler area ideal for rose propagation. First known commercial production began here in the 1870s when industry pioneers such as G. A. McKee and Mathew Shamburger (1827-88) sold rose bushes along with other nursery stock. Business expanded in the 1920s as more nurserymen began growing roses. Production was increased by new growing methods such as irrigation, introduced in 1924 by A. F. Watkins. The Texas Rose Festival was started in Oct. 1933 to publicize the industry. Scientific plant research, begun in the 1930s by J. C. Ratsek, Dr. E. W. Lyle, and others from the Tyler substation of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, was implemented by organization of the Texas Rose Foundation, Inc., in 1945. The Tyler Rose Garden, a 22-acre municipal park, was created in 1952. Nurseries donate the many varieties of plants, which are cared for by the city. Today the rose industry is vital to the economy of Smith County. In 1973 the value of bushes and flowers shipped around the world by local nurseries totaled $9,000,000. One-half of the rose bushes produced each year in the United States come from the Tyler area. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — steps away
  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 — 1.5 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 — 4.7 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 — 9.7 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

• Butler College — 0.4 mi
• Richard Bennett Hubbard — 1.0 mi
• Gary Elementary School — 1.1 mi
• Tyler Commercial College — 1.3 mi