JOSEPH H. GARRISON, ex-county clerk, president of the Randall County land and Abstract Company and otherwise prominent at Canyon City, has been a resident of the Panhandle for the past ten years, and has taken a foremost rank among the enterprising and public-spirited citizens of Randall county.
Mr. Garrison comes of a good Virginia stock, and inherits the best traditions and ideals of the south. He was born in 1861 at Middlebrook, Augusta county, Virginia, in which part of the state his good old father is still living. His parents, Jacob S. and Rebecca (Fix) Garrison, were both Virginians by birth, and throughout his active life his father was a manufacturer of wagons, buggies, etc.
After receiving his education in the schools of Middlebrook and Staunton Mr. Garrison learned the trade of painter in his father’s shop, and in 1884 he came to Texas to follow this occupation. He spent the first four years in Erath county, and in 1888 came to the plains country. Locating at Plainview in Hale county, he prosecuted a successful business in painting, not only at Plainview but also took contracts for work all through that section of the country. Since 1895 he has been a resident of Canyon City. In November, 1900, he was elected county and district clerk of Randall county, was re-elected in 1902, and served until the expiration of his second term, in the latter part of 1904. In the meantime, in partnership with C. N. Harrison, he had established the Randall County Land and Abstract Company at Canyon City, to which business, as its president, he now gives the larger part of his time. The firm has the complete abstract books of Randall county, and does a large business in real estate and insurance. Mr. Garrison is the possessor of one of the nicest ranches in the Panhandle, and although it makes no claims to distinction in the matter of acreage, since it comprises only six hundred and forty acres, yet it is a model as far as management and products are concerned. It is situated twelve miles southwest of Canyon City, in Randall county, on a most eligible location on Terra Blanco creek. Mr. Garrison makes a specialty of and has established a reputation for his thoroughbred registered Durham cattle, with which he has had fine success.
Mr. Garrison affiliates with the Masonic order and with the Knights of Pythias. He was married in Dickens county, this state, to Miss Adra Canan, and they have two children, William Lloyd and Beatrice Erlene.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, p. 139.