Garland Carr Broadhead was born on October 30, 1827, in Albermarle County, Virginia, USA.

He was an American geologist, educator, and author. He attended the University of Missouri (1850-1851; M.S., 1873) and Western Military Institute, Kentucky (1851-1852). He worked as a civil engineer at the Missouri Pacific Railroad (1852-1857 and 1864-1866), assistant geologist of Missouri (1857-1861) and Illinois (1868), and state geologist of Missouri (1873-1875). He was a professor of geology and mineralogy at the University of Missouri (1887-1897). As one of the leading authorities on midwestern mineral and ore deposits, Broadhead was asked in 1875 to begin collecting mineral samples and fossils for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Centennial Exposition to be held in Philadelphia in 1876. He wrote and edited several books and articles on the geology, geography, and history of Missouri, including geological surveys of Missouri (1874) and Illinois (1875), and a treatise on Indian trails and traces (1902).

In 1864, he married Marion Wallace Wright (1843–1883) and in 1890, he remarried Victoria Regina Royall (1839–1913). He died on December 15, 1912, in Columbia, Missouri, USA.