The railroad made Amarillo a cattle town, and by 1890 it was one of the busiest cattle-shipping points in the world — longhorns and Panhandle herds moving out by the trainload. That ranching heritage still runs deep: Amarillo is the home of the American Quarter Horse Association and its Hall of Fame, the registry of the quintessential Western working horse. Then, in 1926, came the road that made the city famous a second time. Route 66 — the Mother Road — ran straight through Amarillo, roughly halfway between Chicago and Santa Monica, and the Historic Sixth Street District filled with the diners, motels, and neon that still say "road trip" to the whole country.
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.
