Garrison, TX

Garrison is a Nacogdoches County city where the 2020 census counted 789 residents. Around 1884, Captain Jim Garrison bought land along the Attoyac River and conveyed part of it to the Houston, East and West Texas Railway for a depot and right-of-way. His office, which supplied wood and railroad ties, was the first business in the new settlement. The first train arrived in 1886, and Garrison incorporated in 1890.

U.S. 59 runs 18 miles southwest to Nacogdoches and carries the city into the wider East Texas road network. Garrison Independent School District gives the community a local center, with the Bulldogs name following students from elementary years through high school. Timber, mineral springs, coal, fireproof clay, and railroad work all shaped the early economy, while the Attoyac River remains part of the surrounding landscape. Garrison's present-day map is compact, but its origin story is full of movement: land given for tracks, a depot at the center, and a town growing around the businesses that served the line.