On this site stood Nicholson Memorial Hall, a civic building that housed Garland's first public library beginning in 1933. The structure's lower floor dated from about 1895, when it was occupied by Garland's first bank, the Citizens National. A second story was added later and the building continued as a bank until 1929. W.R. Nicholson of Longview purchased the building and gave it to the city in March, 1933 as a memorial to his mother, Mrs. Missouri A. Nicholson, and his brother, former Garland Mayor S.E. Nicholson, who were killed by a disastrous cyclone that struck the city on May 9, 1927.
The building housed city offices, a public auditorium, and, on a portion of the first floor, the new public library. Citizens of the city, then numbering fewer than 2,000 people, collected 2,344 books to stock the new library, which loaned its first book in December, 1933.
As the library and the city staff rapidly expanded, the building was no longer able to contain them. City offices moved into a new
building on the east end of this property in January, 1956, retaining some space on the ground floor of the Nicholson building for city
personnel. In 1966, the library was housed in temporary quarters until it relocated in 1970 to a new building on Austin Street dedicated exclusively to library use. A much larger City Hall was opened in 1964.
The aging Nicholson Memorial Hall, deemed uneconomical to renovate, was razed in 1973.