Col. Homer Garrison, Jr.
Palestine, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Born in Kickapoo (Anderson Co.) in 1901, Homer Garrison was the son of Mattie (Milam) and Homer Garrison, Sr. The family moved to Angelina County, where Homer, Sr. served as district clerk. Homer, Jr. graduated from Lufkin High School and worked for his father. Against his father’s advice, he took his first law enforcement job at age 19, as Angelina County deputy sheriff. In 1929, he became the state license and weight inspector for the Texas Highway Department. When the Texas Highway Patrol organized in 1930, Homer, Jr. was one of the first thirty patrolmen. In 1935, the Texas Legislature created the Department of Public Safety (DPS), combining the Highway Patrol with the Texas Rangers, the state’s oldest law enforcement group. Garrison was the first assistant director and developed training for DPS officers. Three years later, Col. Garrison became DPS director and chief of the Texas Rangers. Under his leadership, the DPS grew to more than 3,400 employees and major programs developed, including crime control, police training and traffic supervision, driver licensing, vehicle inspection, safety education, and defense and disaster service. In his thirty years as head of the state law enforcement agency, federal and state agencies sought Garrison’s expertise and experience. He also served as head of state defense and disaster relief efforts. Garrison helped secure a headquarters building and museum for the Texas Rangers in Waco. At the groundbreaking, he gave what was to be his last speech, remarking of the Rangers, “They are men who cannot be stampeded;” these words are at the base of the museum’s Texas Ranger statue. Garrison died in 1968. He and his wife Mary Nell (Kilgo) are buried at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. 175 Years of Texas Independence * 1836-2011
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Anderson County in 1901, Homer Garrison, Jr. took his first lawman's job at nineteen as a deputy sheriff, against his father's advice. He was among the first thirty Texas Highway Patrol troopers in 1930 and, when the Department of Public Safety was created in 1935 by merging the patrol with the Texas Rangers, rose to become its director and chief of the Rangers in 1938. Over thirty years he built the agency to more than 3,400 employees and pioneered training, licensing, and safety programs.
Why it matters
Garrison modernized Texas law enforcement, transforming the frontier-era Rangers and a young highway patrol into a professional statewide agency whose model influenced departments nationwide.
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Related people
- · Homer Garrison, Jr.
Related events
- · Creation of the Texas Department of Public Safety, 1935
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Purvey Lee (P.L.) Chism
Palestine, TX
Born in Alabama in 1893, Purvey Lee Chism served with the 127th Field Artillery in England and France during World War I before devoting his life to education. He taught and led rural schools in Lamar County, earned a master's degree from Texas A&M, and in 1940 moved to Palestine as a deputy state superintendent overseeing a growing cluster of counties. As Anderson County's school supervisor until 1963, he visited classrooms daily, shaping curriculum and mentoring teachers and students alike.
Timothy Stephen Smith
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Born in 1902 to a father who had escaped slavery, Timothy Stephen Smith earned a degree from Prairie View A&M and taught school for forty-two years. Convinced that Anderson County's voting boundaries diluted Black political strength, he and others sued in 1973; Judge William Wayne Justice agreed, striking down a "racially motivated gerrymander" and forcing a switch to single-member districts. Similar success against the City of Palestine soon followed, opening the way for the county's first Black officeholders.
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Built in 1848 as the home of Judge John B. Mallard, Palestine's first lawyer, this house later became the residence of Judge William Alexander, who served as Chief Justice of Anderson County from 1860 to 1865 and helped found the town's first school. The dwelling has stood since the early days of the county seat and was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1966.
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