Texas Rose Festival: A Legacy of Roses

Have you ever heard the expressions "Smelling like a rose" and "Everything's coming up roses?" They mean that something good has happened, because roses are so beautiful and smell so good. Have you ever smelled a rose? They are fragrant, colorful flowers with thorny stems and exist in many varieties.

Texas is known for its roses. Since 1933, the Texas Rose Festival in Tyler has celebrated the beauty and scent of roses. Inspired by a new agricultural industry, civic-minded leaders and the women of the Tyler Garden Club created the Texas Rose Festival to promote the rose industry, build tourism, celebrate volunteerism, and instill community pride. The four-day festival offers a Queen's Coronation, a Rose Show, a Queen's Tea, and a Rose Parade.

After a plague wiped out the area's peach crops, rose growing in Tyler began on a small scale in the early 1900s. Rose plantings increased each year, and business boomed.

Tyler roses are famous. In 1968, Tyler "Apache Belle" roses were given to Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson, and they now grow in the White House Rose Garden.

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