return to handbook view

GARNER, TEXAS. Garner is on Farm Road 113 fourteen miles northwest of Weatherford in west central Parker County. The first settlers arrived in the area in the mid-1850s. The twenty or so families who made up the town's population opened a school and called the place Trapps Springs. Development of an established community began in the late 1880s a half mile west of the original site. By 1890 the community had a post office branch and a new name, Garner, chosen in honor of a local gin operator, Ab (or C. B.) Bumgarner. The arrival of the Weatherford, Mineral Wells and Northwestern Railway established Garner as a retail and shipping point for the area. For most of the twentieth century Garner was a church and school community for local farmers. In 1914 it had forty residents and five businesses. The population was seventy-five in 1947 and ninety-eight in 1980 and 1990. The post office was discontinued about 1970. The population was 196 in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kathleen E. and Clifton R. St. Clair, eds., Little Towns of Texas (Jacksonville, Texas: Jayroe Graphic Arts, 1982).

David Minor

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/GG/hng2.html (accessed July 4, 2008).

(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")

The Handbook of Texas Online is a project of the Texas State Historical Association (http://www.tshaonline.org).

Copyright ©, The Texas State Historical Association, 1997-2002
Last Updated: January 17, 2008
Please send us your comments.