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.
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
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.
