Amarillo is the Yellow City — capital of the Texas Panhandle, out on the high, flat Llano Estacado where the railroad dropped a cattle town in 1887 and Route 66 later ran straight through its heart. This is big-sky Texas: feedlots and ranch country to every horizon, the second-largest canyon in America just down the road, ten Cadillacs planted nose-down in a field, and a town that was once the busiest cattle-shipping point on earth. Cowboy bones, Mother Road neon, helium under the caprock — that is Amarillo.
And then there is the land itself. Palo Duro Canyon — the second-largest canyon in the United States, carved by a fork of the Red River into 800-foot walls of layered red and gold — opens up about 25 miles southeast, with the Lighthouse Rock formation as its signature and rim-to-floor trails for hikers and campers. West of town on the old Route 66 alignment stands Cadillac Ranch, the 1974 installation by the art collective Ant Farm: ten Cadillacs buried nose-down in a wheat field, repainted daily by visitors, as pure a piece of American roadside art as exists anywhere.
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.
