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.
The land came first, and it was extraordinary land — the Blackland Prairie, a belt of deep black waxy soil that made some of the finest cotton country in America. Settlers of the Peters Colony began arriving around 1850, and by 1854 the little community of Duck Creek, named for the stream that still runs through the city, had its own post office. The village that grew up in the 1870s was pure Blackland Texas: cotton gins, gristmills, churches, and farm families working ground so rich it turned the region into the cotton heart of North Texas.
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.
