Seniors: “Texas Made Here”

Senior travelers will find Garland, a suburb, 15 miles northeast of Dallas. The population runs over 200,000.

With the completion of the Garland Center for the Performing Arts in June of 1982, the City of Garland began a trend among Texas suburbs to build local facilities where the arts would flourish. The Garland Symphony would interest my wife and me. Garland is ranked the 9th safest city in the USA and for senior visitors, that is meaningful.

The genesis of Garland can be traced to early rural communities and townships, the first of which was Duck Creek. Established during the mid-to-latter part of the 19th century, Duck Creek became an agricultural community whose principal crop was cotton.

The arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1886, which bypassed old Duck Creek by almost a mile, gave rise to a competing community known as Embree. Later that same year, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad (MK&T) built its own station a little north of Embree and called it the new Duck Creek.

The competition between the communities was resolved in 1887 when the government located a new post office between the two towns and named the new location Garland in honor of then U.S. Attorney General Augustus H. Garland.

 Seniors Find The Hat Capital

By the mid-20th century, Garland has begun transforming itself from an agricultural town to an industrial one. Production during World War II gave the city a large economic and population boost.

The Garland Opry is a non-profit organization which has been providing the Garland community with weekly Country and Gospel music entertainment for over 32 years. There are numerous attractions outside the city limits of Garland but within minutes of the city in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area.

Garland is the hat capital of the world with brands like Stetson. Senior golfers, play Firewheel, the largest municipal golf course in Texas. And get this… as a former language teacher myself… 115 languages are spoken in Garland. That’s a lot of polyglots.

 Seniors Enjoy Firewheel Town Center

The Patty Granville Arts Center complex attracts more than 170,000 patrons per year with two-thirds coming from all over the region.  The center houses two elegant proscenium theaters that accommodate everything from Broadway touring shows to symphony concerts. The center also includes The Atrium and the Plaza Theatre.

Garland invites senior visitors to spend some quality time shopping and dining at Firewheel Town Center, an open air, urban complex with more than 100 shops – from unique boutiques to major retailers. Garland has 63 parks… sounds to me like one on every corner.

Garland today is one of the state’s larger cities, yet retains the character of a small family town. So set your GPS for Garland and enjoy. -jeb