Garland is one town made from two — a Dallas County city on the old Blackland Prairie, fifteen miles northeast of downtown Dallas, that began its life as a pair of feuding railroad camps glaring at each other across a mile of black dirt. Today it is one of the largest cities in Texas: a manufacturing powerhouse of the Metroplex, home to one of the most diverse communities in the state, with Lake Ray Hubbard on its eastern shore and a square downtown that remembers where it all started. One post office, two stubborn towns, and a name nobody could argue with — that is Garland.
What's with Duck Creek and Embree? Garland began in 1887 as a post office set between two feuding railroad towns, Duck Creek and Embree, named for Attorney General Augustus Garland. The feud was real: when two railroads built rival depots in 1886, old Duck Creek split into two new towns — Duck Creek on the Katy line and Embree on the Santa Fe — that fought over everything, the post office most of all. A fire gutted old Duck Creek's business district; Embree grabbed the mail; injunctions flew; the fight landed in court. In late 1887 Congressman Joseph Abbott settled it the Texas way — he had the post office moved to neutral ground exactly midway between the two depots, and on December 9, 1887 it opened under a brand-new name. Local legend says both towns accepted it because Augustus Garland had never set foot in Texas: nobody knew him, so nobody could object.
Why People Visit Garland Texas
People come to Garland for its easy place in the Metroplex — a historic square and a real founding story, lake recreation on Ray Hubbard, and green preserves — all minutes northeast of Dallas. It's practical, green, and neighborly: the town that two railroads accidentally built.
