Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Garrison Garrison, TX

Garrison is a small town in northeastern Nacogdoches County in the Piney Woods of East Texas, located on U.S. Highway 59 about 18 miles northeast of Nacogdoches.

Garrison began around 1884 when Captain J. H. (Jim) Garrison bought 387 acres on the Attoyac River and conveyed 125 acres to the Houston, East and West Texas Railway for a depot and townsite, with the first train arriving in 1886.

Garrison was incorporated on May 18, 1890, and it claims to be the oldest incorporated community in Nacogdoches County because the city of Nacogdoches' own incorporation was interrupted around 1900.

In 1937 Garrison elected Maud Irwin as its mayor, making her the first woman mayor in Texas.

By 1896 Garrison's mineral springs had made it a small health resort with 500 residents, and its population doubled to about 1,000 by 1915 on the strength of the railroad tie and timber trade.

Garrison's economy long rested on East Texas pine forests, supplying railroad crossties and pulpwood, and the area also saw early coal mining and brick making.

Garrison peaked at 1,082 residents in 1970 and had 789 residents living in 287 households at the 2020 census.

Garrison is served by the Garrison Independent School District, home of the Garrison Bulldogs.

The whole town of Garrison covers only about 1.2 square miles, all of it land, in the rolling timber country near the Attoyac Bayou.