Garden Valley

On January 1, 1851, James L. Davidson purchased more than 1,000 acres in northwestern Smith County, the tract where he founded the town of Garden Valley. The next year, Garden Valley had a post office and its first public road, the approximate route of Farm Road 16 today. Two years later, the commissioners court of Smith County opened another public road, the Tyler to Garden Valley Road. Shortly after, Davidson built a store, which he named J.L. Davidson & Company, at the intersection of the two roads. In addition to his store, Davidson also installed a mill in Garden Valley by 1860.

The town had a Methodist church by 1854, which also doubled as the site for the community school beginning in the 1860s. By 1870, Garden Valley saw an increase of residents, including two blacksmiths and several physicians. In 1871, the William Taylor Masonic Lodge, originally organized in nearby Flora, moved their meeting place to Garden Valley. Baptist worshippers also built a church here in 1877.

During the early part of the twentieth century, the town experienced stability with several stores and cotton gins, but began to decline in the 1930s. The school eventually merged with Van Independent School District, the Methodist church dissolved and a new state highway bypassed the town, forcing the closing of the post office in 1952. The Garden Valley Resort and Golf Club, developed in the mid-1970s, preserves the name, and while the business district is gone and only the Baptist church and a few residents remain, Garden Valley remains one of the area's historic settlements. (2017)