Amarillo is one of the few places where the Old West is literally only steps away as you move from the modern twenty-first century to the many surrounding working ranches that are essentially unchanged from the late 1800s in their day to day operations.

Francisco Coronado was the first European to see the vast open spaces of what would one day be the Texas Panhandle – nearly 80 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. The roving tribes of Indians had dominated the area for centuries and were one of the last strongholds against the invasion of the “White Man.” After the last hold out ended in the Red River War in 1875, the “staked plains” were opened to settlement.

The vast, empty territory was immediately sought out by buffalo hunters while the soldiers at Fort Elliott were tasked with keeping the Indians on Oklahoma reservations. In late 1876, Charles Goodnight drove a herd of longhorn cattle into Palo Duro Canyon to begin the first Panhandle ranch. Quickly following, more cattlemen and sheep herders headed to the area for fresh grazing grounds and a place to start a new life.

In 1887 and 1888, two railroads crossed the Panhandle, opening up the former “frontier.” When the Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad came through the area, Amarillo was born as a tent city by railroad workers. J.T. Berry, a town site developer from Abilene, Texas quickly began to develop the settlement and on August 30, 1887 it won the designation as the Potter County seat.

The town was first named “Oneida,” but soon changed to Amarillo, meaning “yellow” in Spanish for the color of the soil on the nearby banks of Amarillo Creek and the abundant yellow wildflowers during the spring and the summer. Most of the town's first houses were painted yellow in commemoration of the name change. The Spanish pronunciation, Ah-mah-ree-yoh, was first used to describe the settlement, but that was short lived. As the conductors along the railroad passing through called out their English pronunciation of “Am-ah-rillow,” the beautiful original articulation was lost forever.

Just months after its founding, Amarillo boasted a post office, several stores, a temporary frame courthouse, and soon a 25-room hotel called “The Champion.” In the spring of 1889, when heavy rains almost flooded "Old Town," most of the settlement moved about one mile east to higher ground.

To Quirky Amarillo

Return to Route 66

To Amarillo Air Force Base