They named it yellow. When the railroad reached the high plains of the Texas Panhandle in 1887, the cattle town that sprang up took the Spanish word for yellow — amarillo — for the wildflowers, or the soil. The Yellow City grew into one of the busiest cattle-shipping points on earth, then a marquee stop on Route 66 halfway between Chicago and the coast, with the second-largest canyon in the country cut into the plains just to the south. Cattle, canyon, and the Mother Road — this is Amarillo, and this page tells its story.
Our Amarillo logo carries a Texas longhorn — the cattle breed that built the open range — and a Lone Star over "1845," the year of statehood and the shared emblem of every Merlin Classics Texas place. Printed black-and-white with the worn look of a branding iron or an old highway shield, the longhorn and star read as Texas in shorthand: cattle country, the Lone Star, the wide Panhandle horizon. What makes this one Amarillo is the place behind it — the Yellow City, the cattle trains, the Quarter-Horse country, and the Mother Road running through the middle of it all.
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.
