Ganado is a city in Jackson County, Texas, in the Coastal Bend region southwest of Houston. Its population is roughly 2,000, making it the second-largest town in the county after Edna, the county seat. The community's history is rooted in ranching and in the transportation routes that shaped South Texas settlement. The site began as an informal cluster of cabins called Mustang Settlement, named for nearby Mustang Creek. Early settlers were largely cattle ranchers who lived near the creek and traveled to Texana, Victoria, and the port of Indianola for supplies — a pattern that tied Ganado from its earliest days to the wider Coastal Bend economy. The arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad transformed the settlement. Its position on the line made Ganado a shipping and retail center for eastern Jackson County, moving cattle, cotton, and other agricultural products to market and drawing businesses to the growing town. That rail-era role formalized Ganado's place as the county's second city. Today Ganado functions as a small ranching and agricultural community, with homes, schools, churches, and local businesses serving both the town and the surrounding countryside. Livestock and farming remain central to the local economy and culture, continuing a heritage that reaches back to the Mustang Settlement era. The city's location places it within reach of Edna for county government and services, and of Victoria, the regional hub of the Coastal Bend, for larger employment, shopping, and medical care. Ganado's identity remains that of a long-established South Texas ranching town — quiet, practical, and tied to the land, defined by generations of families connected to the ranch economy and the Coastal Bend landscape.