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1906: Bergfeld Park

A plat, a deed with a deadline, and a purchase.

Parks and grounds· 1906–1913

Bergfeld Park
What the sources put on the map by 1913, over today’s streets.Under it: Sanborn map, February 1912, sheet 1, the key map. Sanborn Map Company, Tyler, Smith County, Texas, 1912. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Sanborn Maps Collection.Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

The record

  1. 1906

    Rudolph Bergfeld sets aside the land for Bergfeld Park in a plat.1

  2. 1909

    He deeds it to the city, on condition that park work begin within six months.1

  3. After the deadline

    When the park-work deadline has passed, Bergfeld offers to sell the land for $4,000. Our sources do not date the offer.1

  4. June 21, 1913

    The city council approves the purchase.1

  5. 1934 and 1936

    The park, first called South Side Park, hosts the Texas Rose Festival’s coronation in 1934, and gains a stone amphitheater built with $10,000 given in 1936 by Sears, Roebuck president Robert Wood.2

Notes

  1. Tyler Morning Telegraph, 2025-09-07: How the Bergfeld Legacy Continues to Shape Tyler (tylerpaper.com); Tyler Parks and Recreation: Bergfeld Park (tylerparksandrec.com); Tyler Texas Online: Hiking trails and parks (tylertexasonline.com). Research notes

  2. National Register Multiple Property Documentation Form, Historic and Architectural Resources of Tyler, Texas (2001) (atlas.thc.texas.gov). Research notes

  3. Library of Congress, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Tyler, Smith County, Texas, Feb. 1912, sheet 1 (loc.gov). Fits neither start date cleanly: the 2000 survey dates the first paving to 1906 and the square to 1907; the 2015 Tyler Morning Telegraph, citing city data, says the first streets were built around 1912. Research notes

About this plate

  • Bergfeld Park: a filled pin marks the place the sources tie the event to. 32.33301° N, 95.30172° W, from OpenStreetMap way/168494860.
  • Under the plate, the Sanborn map, February 1912 (sheet 1, the key map). Its first sheet says ‘About one mile of brick paved streets.’3 It is placed by 19 street crossings that still exist; checked by leaving each out in turn, it is off by about 17 m downtown. How the old maps are placed.
  • The faint linework is today’s map, from OpenStreetMap. How the map is made.