Kathy Weiser, September, 2007.

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McLean started as a cattle loading site along the Rock Island Railroad when, in 1901, a water well was dug and a switch and section house was built. But soon, a large rancher donated land in order to lay out a town site. Just one year later the town was incorporated and  boasted two banks, two livery stables, two wagon yards, two cafes, a post office, a lumber yard, newspaper called the McLean News, and a furniture store. By 1909 McLean had became a center for area agriculture, as several hundred carloads of hogs and watermelons were shipped from the rail station annually.

n 1927 the town profited from the oil boom, becoming a major shipping point for area livestock, gas, and oil. And, in the very same year, the Mother Road arrived in McLean, further insuring the town’s growth for the next several decades. During the Golden Age of Route 66, McLean boasted 16 service stations, six motels and numerous cafes. Oklahoma based Phillips Petroleum Company built its first Texas service station in McLean in 1927. By 1940 McLean had six churches, a newspaper, fifty-nine businesses, and a population of more than 1,500.

With the growth of nearby Amarillo and the emergence of Pampa as the county’s industrial center, McLean’s population began to fall. In the late 1970’s Interstate 40 began to bypass many of the small towns of the Texas Panhandle. McLean business owners fought hard to keep McLean alive, knowing that a bypass would draw away the tourist trade for which the many service stations, motels and cafes thrived. Doing their best, the town fought to stop, or at least, slow the eventual building of Interstate to no avail. Construction of the bypass started in March of 1982 and was completed in the summer of 1984. Though McLean was the last Texas Route 66 town bypassed by Interstate 40, the move further reduced its population. Today, McLean is called home to just over 800 citizens.

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