The first settlement here was Duck Creek, a Peters Colony community on the creek that still runs through the city, with a post office by the 1850s. Then the railroads came. In 1886 the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas — the Katy — both bypassed old Duck Creek and built depots about a mile apart, and two rival towns sprang up beside them: Embree on the Santa Fe line, and a new Duck Creek on the Katy. The two fought hard — over the post office, over incorporation, over which would swallow the other. In 1887 Congressman Joseph Abbott settled it by moving the post office to neutral ground between the depots, and the new town took the name Garland, for U.S. Attorney General Augustus H. Garland. Garland incorporated in 1891.
What's with Duck Creek and Embree? They're the two towns that became Garland — and they couldn't stand each other. When the railroads built rival depots a mile apart in 1886, Embree grew up around the Santa Fe stop and a new Duck Creek around the Katy stop, and the rivalry got bitter enough that, by local accounts, men started carrying guns and neighbors stopped speaking across the divide. The fight was really over the post office and the right to incorporate. Congressman Joseph Abbott broke the deadlock in 1887 by putting the post office on neutral ground halfway between the depots and giving the place a brand-new name nobody could claim — Garland — so that neither town "won." That's why Garland's real origin story isn't a founding so much as a peace treaty: one town made from two.
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.
