Garden City is a

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(CDP) in and

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Glasscock County,

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, United States. It lies near the center of the county, south of Big Spring, and at the 2020 census had a population of 334. The ZIP code is 79739.

History

Garden City's history began in 1886, when what became the town's

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

was established in a

general store A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...

, and a settlement began to develop in the area around the business. The post office was to be named after the store proprietor, a man named Gardner. However, after a clerical error by officials in Washington, the postal franchise was granted under the name "Garden" City. Garden City was the first Texas community platted by renowned

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the ...

W. D. Twichell, a

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

native. In 1893, Glasscock County was organized, and Garden City vied for the

along with two other area communities, New California and Dixie. New California was ultimately chosen as the county seat; it was located in a less flood-prone region with a readily accessible water supply. However, at the time of the county's organization, New California consisted of two dwellings and an equally sparse population, whereas Garden City boasted a school, the general store/post office, and several homes. In a unique compromise, most of Garden City's structures were placed on wheels and relocated to the New California site, and on April 5, 1893, the settlement was renamed Garden City. A two-story stone courthouse was constructed later that same year, followed by a new, larger courthouse in 1910 (with the former building remaining in use as the Glasscock County Jail). Between 1927 and 1943, Garden City's population fluctuated between 100 and 250, and several businesses and a newspaper (the Garden City ''Gazette'') had come and gone. By 1945, Garden City had eight businesses and a population of 200. In the 1950s, oil was discovered nearby, creating a bit of a boom for the area. While Garden City's population did not experience the spike that other West Texas oil boom towns had seen (the population peaked at 300 in 1968, many years after the boom had ended), it did increase the community's commerce, with the number of operating businesses almost doubling from 1947 to 1968. By 1980, the population had fallen to 293, a figure maintained until 2010, when that year's

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

counted 334 residents. The area is conducive to

wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

generation, as is much of

West Texas West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the desert climate, arid and semiarid climate, semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Texas, Wichita Falls, Abilene, Texa ...

, and several wind farms have been proposed for the area.

Limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

from the

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

of TexaStone in Garden City was donated in 2004 for establishment of the Stonehenge replica in

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

, Texas.

Demographics

Garden City first appeared as a

census designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

in the 2010 U.S. Census.

2020 census

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 334 people, 78 households, and 67 families residing in the CDP.

Education

Garden City is served by the Glasscock County Independent School District and home to the Garden City High School Bearkats.

Climate

According to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system, Garden City has a

semiarid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of se ...

, ''BSk'' on climate maps.Climate Summary for Garden City, Texas
/ref>

Notes

References

External links

* * {{authority control Census-designated places in Glasscock County, Texas Census-designated places in Texas County seats in Texas Populated places established in 1886 1886 establishments in Texas