The Amarillo of today began in 1887 as a tent camp which housed about 500 men who were working on the right-of-way and construction of the Fort Worth and Denver City line. Because of the jumble of canvas tents, the place was called “Ragtown”, and it kept that name and appearance until J.I. Berry, a townsite developer from Abilene, established a settlement on the bank of a nearby playa lake.
With the help of some political maneuvering involving votes from the cowboys on the LX ranch, Berry succeeded in winning an election that assured his town the county seat, complete with a county courthouse designation and a depot. He named his town Oneida, but the moniker never stuck. Instead, the name was changed to, quote, ‘Ah-mah-ree-yo’, as this was the longtime predominant name for geological features in the area, such as the yellowish soil on the banks of nearby Ah-mah-ree-yo Creek. In deference to the new name, most early houses in the settlement were painted yellow, and the Spanish pronunciation of the town was used, as it had been long before the first settlers came. At that time, Spanish explorers and Mexican sheepherders named many of the landmarks of the area.
Three months after its founding, Ah-mah-ree-yo had a temporary courthouse, a post office, a few stores that made up a small business district, and a 25-room hotel. It also had a new name, or rather a new pronunciation of Ah-mah-ree-yo. C.F. Rudolph, editor of the Tascosa Pioneer, blamed the conductors of the passenger trains for ‘corrupting’ the beautiful Spanish word as they passed through the cars, calling out “Am- ah- rillow!” Within no time, everyone was using the new pronunciation. But the railroads brought more than a name change to the fast-growing plains town. When freight service was introduced in the fall of 1887, cattle shipping became a mainstay of Amarillo commerce. Soon more than 100,000 head were being shipped each year, and this boom continued for a decade, making Amarillo the largest rural shipping point for cattle in the nation.
But in the spring of 1889 the town went through another name change of sorts, as the preliminary site at the edge of the Playa Lake was flooded after heavy rains. The inhabitants were wooed by H.B. Sanborn to move their little city a mile east to higher ground. Sanborn, a rival to townsite developer J.I. Berry, was also known for introducing barbed wire to Texas, and as a part owner of the gigantic Frying Pan Ranch. He vowed to spend $100,000 to move Amarillo quote ‘out of the mudhole’, offered free lots to businessmen, and provided financial assistance to move existing buildings. The town of Amarillo literally rolled up the hill, on logs cut from Palo Duro Canyon and pulled by teams of horses. The new site was centered on Polk Street, and became the thriving downtown of Amarillo, leaving the original town site to be known as “Old Town”.
Information for this story was found on the AHS Alumni Association Website, from an essay entitled “On Early Amarillo” by Pauline Durrett Robertson. For High Plains Public Radio, I’m Cheryl Berzanskis.
High Plains History is a production of High Plains Public Radio. Special thanks to Lynn Boitano for additional production assistance.
