24/7 Biohazard and Crime Scene Cleanup in Garden City, TX

Garden City is an unincorporated census-designated place in West Texas that serves as the county seat of Glasscock County, even though it has no city government of its own — it sits at the intersection of State Highway 158 and Ranch Road 33, about 27 miles south of Big Spring.

Garden City was the first Texas community platted by the renowned surveyor W. D. Twichell, and its history began in 1886, when a post office was established in a general store — TSHA says the name honored a Mr. Gardner, an agent sent by an Ohio land company.

In one of the strangest county-seat stories in Texas, Garden City lost the 1893 county seat contest to nearby New California — so most of Garden City's buildings were put on wheels and rolled to the New California site, which was then renamed Garden City on April 5, 1893.

A two-story stone courthouse was built in Garden City in 1893, and when a larger courthouse replaced it in 1910, the old building stayed in use as the Glasscock County Jail.

Frontier editor J. Marvin Hunter, later famous for Frontier Times magazine, published the town's newspaper, the Garden City Gazette, from 1905 to 1913.

Oil discovered in the 1950s at the Spraberry oilfield on the edge of Glasscock County brought Garden City modest growth, and its population peaked at 300 in 1968.

The 2020 census counted 334 people in Garden City, living in just 78 households and 67 families — a remarkable share of the entire population of rural Glasscock County.

Garden City has its own school district, and in 1989 its elementary and secondary schools enrolled 407 students — more students than the town had residents.

Glasscock County itself was created in 1887 from Tom Green County, organized in 1893, and named for George W. Glasscock, a Texas Revolution officer and legislator.