24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Granger, TX

Granger is a city in northeastern Williamson County, Texas, about 36 miles northeast of Austin, that originated in 1882 where the Houston and San Antonio branches of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad crossed.

The Granger townsite was platted in 1884 with a 100-foot-wide main street, and the town incorporated in 1891; its name is traced either to the local Grange lodge or to John R. Granger, a Civil War veteran.

Granger became one of the great centers of Moravian Czech immigration in Texas, and its heritage still shows in Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church, the Czech Brethren Church, and the SPJST hall.

Granger's Brethren congregation, established in 1892, became the most important Czech Protestant church in Texas, and a 1903 convention held in Granger unified the Brethren congregations of Texas into a single body.

In 1912 Granger became the only town in Texas with a population under 5,000 to have paved streets, and its hand-laid red brick streets from that era are still in place and marked by a state historical marker.

Granger's population peaked at more than 2,000 in the mid-1920s cotton era, and the city had 1,183 residents living in 487 households at the 2020 census.

Granger's vintage look has made it a movie set: the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the 2010 remake of True Grit were both filmed there.

Granger Lake, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir on the San Gabriel River built in the 1970s, lies just east of the city and covers the site of the early farming settlement of Allison, later called Friendship.

The city is served by the Granger Independent School District, home of the Granger Lions.

Photographer Jno P. Trlica, the son of a Moravian immigrant, ran a studio in Granger, and his photographs offer a rare visual record of small-town Texas Czech life in the early 20th century.