Amarillo: The Story of a Western Town

by Paul H. Carlson

“Step into the Real Texas”—Amarillo Chamber of Commerce Amarillo, the Queen City of the Texas Panhandle, is known far beyond its immediate vicinity—the high tableland called the Llano Estacado. The famous highway Route 66 ran through the very heart of Amarillo. Alan Jackson, Emmylou Harris, Neil Sedaka, and James Durst each recorded a different song titled “Amarillo.” Named by True West magazine as one of the fifty most Western towns in America, this city of 176,000 people remains rooted in its Western past—yet at the same time Amarillo’s background and outlook have a distinctly Midwestern flavor. In this book, the first comprehensive history of Amarillo, Paul H. Carlson explores the city and its environs, from the first peoples who settled in the area to Amarillo’s current position as the marketing and commercial hub of a broad region. Through its economic and political strength and its deep cultural influences, Amarillo will likely continue to dominate much of the Texas Panhandle well into the twenty-first century.

283 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2006

About the author

Dr. Paul Howard Carlson is a historian, former professor, and former assistant chairman of the Department of History at Texas Tech University. He was also editor of the West Texas Historical Association Year Book (now West Texas Historical Review) for a number of years.

Reviews

[Edie Heuss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this on the recommendation of one of my thesis advisor for possible use as a secondary source for me thesis. It was a nice book that will be a little useful to my project.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I read it because my daughter lived in Amarillo at the time. And the first hundred pages or so were really quite fascinating, up to the turn of the 20th century at least. But when the chapters became more and more lists of which guy held the office of Town Parks Keeper in 1947, I began to realize, as my daughter also did, that this town had seen its most exciting days some time ago. I left it around 1950 and she did the same soon after.