[6] The original townsite was laid out on the south half of section 18 by engineer Charles Van Trump.

Main Street ran directly north and south, dividing William D. and James R. Fulton's claims.

[6] Following a sustained drought, irrigation arrived in Finney County in 1879, with completion of the "Garden City Ditch".

Before Jones returned home, the Fulton brothers procured his services to promote Garden City, and especially in trying to influence the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad to put in a switch station.

The streets of Garden City were crowded with horses, wagons, buggies and teams of oxen.

Passenger trains of two and three sections arrived daily, loaded with people, most of whom got off at Garden City.

These interfered with the wires, but local residents knew the value of trees in Western Kansas would not allow them to be cut, and the telephone poles were set down the center of the street.

The first long-distance telephone service from Garden City was a line nine miles (14 km) long, built in 1919.

[9] In October 2016, Gavin Wright, Curtis Allen, and Patrick Stein were arrested by the FBI for plotting a bombing attack on a mosque and the housing complex where some of the town's Somali community live.

[10] The three men were charged in federal court with threatening to use weapons of mass destruction, namely explosives.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 8.82 square miles (22.84 km2), all land.

[20][21] Garden City is located in Tornado Alley and receives a share of storms every spring.

On June 23, 1967, an F3 tornado struck the north side of Garden City, killing one person and damaging more than 400 homes.

The 2020 United States census counted 28,151 people, 9,676 households, and 6,679 families in Garden City.

That year, according to Frank Morris of National Public Radio, "some say" the residents may speak up to 40 different languages; at least 27 were spoken.

[40] After the Fall of Saigon in 1975 immigrants from Southeast Asia began coming to Garden City.

Garden City Catholics sponsored an initial group of Vietnamese immigrants that year.

Additionally, an ethanol plant, Bonanza Bioenergy was built in 2007 by Conestoga Energy Partners which uses 19.6 million bushels of grain.

The industries employing the largest percentages of the working civilian labor force were educational services, health care, and social assistance (20.4%); manufacturing (19.3%); and retail trade (15.0%).

[48] Bus service is provided daily eastward towards Wichita by BeeLine Express (subcontractor of Greyhound Lines).

[51] Amtrak uses the La Junta Subdivision to provide passenger rail service; Garden City is a stop on the Southwest Chief line.

[61] In recent years, an annual music festival called the Hillside Sessions[62] has taken place at an historic structure which over the decades has been a barn, an industrial atelier and a dance hall.

Originally hand-dug in 1922, a bathhouse was added by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression, and local farmers used horse-drawn soil-scrapers to later enlarge the pool.

Located inside 110-acre (0.45 km2) Finnup Park, the pool is co-located with Finney County Historical Museum and Lee Richardson Zoo, the largest zoological facility in western Kansas, housing more than 300 animals representing 110 species.

A few miles from Finnup Park, the Big Pool and Lee Richardson Zoo is the Buffalo Game Preserve, with one of the largest herds of bison in the world.

[63] The Windsor Hotel, built downtown in 1887 by John A. Stevens, was known as the "Waldorf of the Prairies" because of its lavish quarters.

Among its early guests were Eddie Foy, Lillian Russell, Jay Gould and Buffalo Bill Cody, who stayed in the presidential suite on the third floor.

The school offers football, basketball, soccer, wrestling, track and field, baseball, softball, tennis, and swimming.

The football team at Garden City Community College won the NJCAA National Championship in 2016.

Notable individuals who were born in or have lived in Garden City include novelist Sanora Babb,[67] jazz pianist Frank Mantooth,[68] former Governor of Colorado Roy Romer,[69] professional football players Thurman "Fum" McGraw and Hal Patterson and successful professional boxers Victor Ortiz, Antonio Orozco, and Brandon Rios.