The twentieth century turned the farm town into an industrial one. Manufacturing put down roots — Resistol, the famous Western hat maker, among the plants that made Garland a byword for Texas industry — and the city diversified into electronics, food processing, chemicals, and instruments, building one of the larger industrial bases in North Texas. The Plaza Theatre rose on the downtown square in 1941 and still anchors it, restored and busy; the postwar Metroplex boom did the rest, carrying Garland from a courthouse-square cotton town to one of the largest cities in Texas.
Union came quickly once the name did. On March 31, 1891, Garland incorporated and absorbed both Duck Creek and Embree — one city where two rivals had stood — and by 1890 the young town already counted four churches, three cotton gins, and a flour mill. The Blackland farms kept it prosperous: cotton above all, and in the early twentieth century Garland's twin rail lines made it one of the region's great onion-shipping points, moving the crop out of the black dirt by the trainload.
Why People Visit Garland Texas
- Stroll the historic downtown square and the restored Plaza Theatre (1941).
- Get out on Lake Ray Hubbard for boating, sailing, and shoreline parks.
- Walk the old-growth bottomland of Spring Creek Forest Preserve.
- Ride the wooded singletrack at Rowlett Creek Preserve.
- Shop and gather on the historic downtown square, with the Plaza Theatre marquee glowing over it.
