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.
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
- 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.
