A creek named yellow, a town painted to match, the busiest cattle pens on earth, and a highway that carried the whole country through town — Amarillo wears its story the way the Panhandle wears its sky: wide open. Amarillo, Texas — the Yellow City of the Panhandle, on Route 66 since 1926. Wear a little of it wherever the road takes you.
The city itself arrived with the Fort Worth & Denver City Railway in 1887. A tent camp on the right-of-way grew into a townsite platted by J.T. Berry beside Amarillo Lake — called Wild Horse Lake by the cowboys — and on August 30, 1887 it won the Potter County seat election. Two years later, after flooding soaked the low ground, Henry B. Sanborn — partner of barbed-wire magnate Joseph F. Glidden and remembered as the Father of Amarillo — moved the town to higher ground, and the boom began: by the 1890s Amarillo was shipping more cattle than any point on the planet, over 100,000 head a year.
Why People Visit Amarillo Texas
- Drive a stretch of historic Route 66 through the Sixth Street Historic District, with vintage storefronts, antiques, and diners.
- Visit Palo Duro Canyon State Park, the "Grand Canyon of Texas" and the second-largest canyon in the country.
- Tour the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame and Museum, honoring the West's working horse.
- See Cadillac Ranch, the famous row of nose-down Cadillacs along Interstate 40.
- Stop at the Big Texan Steak Ranch, a Route 66 icon of Panhandle cattle country.
