Azalea Residential Historic District

Located in south central Tyler, Texas, this district spans 76 blocks and about 459 acres of homes built mainly between 1925 and 1953. Most of its 1,614 resources are single-family houses and their garages or garage apartments, with a school, two churches, a civic building and a few commercial buildings. Development sped up after the East Texas Oil Field was discovered in 1931, bringing large architect-designed houses for wealthy residents alongside modest and middle-class homes built by local craftsmen. Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival dominate, joined by Ranch, Craftsman, Monterey and other styles. Mass azalea plantings, mature oaks and pecans, stone and brick walls, red brick streets, stone-lined drainage channels, footbridges and a park improved with Depression-era federal funds give the area a wooded, park-like feel. Alterations have been modest, and 1,047 of the 1,614 resources are classed as contributing, so the neighborhood keeps a strong sense of its mid-20th-century character.