United, the town grew on the rich black soil of the Blackland Belt. Cotton came first — gins, a roller flour mill, and the rail lines carrying the crop to market — and by the 1940s Garland had become a major onion-shipping point on the railroad. Industry followed: a cotton mill, then manufacturing, and a Texas cowboy-hat trade that made the city part of the state's hat-making story. Through the mid-twentieth century the Dallas boom rolled northeast and Garland turned from a farm-and-rail town into one of the largest cities in Texas — but the downtown square, the Plaza Theatre of 1941, and Duck Creek itself still mark where it began.
Today Garland is one of the largest cities in Texas, a Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex city proud of its rail-town roots, its Blackland-prairie cotton heritage, and the downtown square where two rival towns became one. Its story runs from the Duck Creek settlement through the 1886 railroad rivalry, the 1887 compromise that named the town, and the cotton-and-rail decades that built it. Our Garland designs gather that identity into wearable form — the railroad, the prairie, the Lone Star. Garland, Texas — one town made from two, since 1887.
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 at Firewheel Town Center and the downtown events on the square.
