Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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And though the town may seem as featureless as the surrounding landscape, there's
plenty here to sate even the most attention-challenged during a road respite. Beef, the big
local industry, is at the heart of Amarillo and it features in many of its attractions, includ-
ing a starring role at the Big Texan Steak Ranch.
Like a good steak, Amarillo is marbled - with railroad tracks. Running south of town,
I-40 is especially charmless. Instead, follow SE 3rd Ave from the east through the co-
matose center and decaying west side to SW 6th Ave. Locally dubbed the San Jacinto Dis-
trict, the strip between Georgia St and Western St was once part of Route 66 and is
Amarillo's best shopping, dining and entertainment district.
Sights
Cadillac Ranch
(I-40, btwn exits 60 & 62)
To millions of people whizzing across the Texas Panhandle each year,
the Cadillac Ranch, also known as Amarillo's 'Bumper Crop,' is the ultimate symbol of
the US love affair with wheels. A salute to Route 66 and the spirit of the American road, it
was created by burying, hood first, 10 west-facing Cadillacs in a wheat field outside town.
In 1974 controversial Amarillo businessperson and arts patron Stanley Marsh funded
the San Francisco-based Ant Farm collective's 'monument to the rise and fall of the Ca-
dillac tail fin.' The cars date from 1948 to 1959 - a period in which tail fins just kept get-
ting bigger and bigger - on to 1963, when the fin vanished. Marsh relocated the cars in
1997 to a field 2 miles west of its original location due to suburban sprawl (which is again
encroaching on this location).
MONUMENT
