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.
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.
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.
