Shopping Centers & Malls
Bergfeld Center has a unique history in East Texas, and in Tyler. Bergfeld Realty Company was founded in 1882 when Rudolph Bergfeld started buying city lots and land in Tyler and East Texas. Bergfeld began developing the Azalea District in Tyler in the 1920s and by his death in 1930, owned commercial property in downtown Houston, Dallas and Tyler.
Julius A. Bergfeld, the son of Rudolph, returned to Tyler in 1932 after building a successful real estate business in Dallas, developing property between Southern Methodist University and downtown Dallas.
In the late 1940s, Julius A. and his son Julius L. Bergfeld, Sr., developed Bergfeld Center, a mixed-use commercial development several miles south of downtown Tyler. Bergfeld Center was the first shopping center in East Texas and one of the oldest in the state of Texas, behind Highland Park Village—and the same architect designed both.