Amarillo

Boys Ranch, one of the destinations the Amarillo gateway lists, was the work of a former wrestler turned tire dealer. Cal Farley settled in Amarillo in 1923, built a defunct tire shop into a large business and broadcast a daily radio program for fifteen years. In 1934 he helped start the Maverick Club, an athletics program for boys. In 1939 he opened the ranch for boys the club could not reach. It ran on contributions alone, MGM filmed its story in 1946, and by 1973 some 2,500 boys had been educated, trained and cared for there.

What the plaque says

Amarillo County Seat, Potter County; founded in 1887. Incorporated 1892. Named for Arroyo Amarillo, Spanish name of nearby creek. Transportation, financial, cultural and medical center. Gateway to: Alibates Flint Quarry National Monument, Lake Meredith, Palo Duro State Park, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Boys Ranch. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Route 66 Sixth Street Historic District — 1.4 mi
  Thirteen blocks of Amarillo's streetcar suburb that Route 66 turned into a roadside strip, from the 1922 Nat to Texaco, Phillips and Dutch Mill stations, now shops and bars.
• Helium Centennial Time Columns Monument — 2.5 mi
  Four sealed time capsules raised in Amarillo in 1968 for helium's centennial, in the city that for years produced almost all the world's commercial helium from the Cliffside field.
• Cadillac Ranch — 6.4 mi
  Ten Cadillacs from 1949 to 1963 planted nose down in a pasture west of Amarillo by the Ant Farm collective in 1974, on private land where visitors are let in to paint them.
• Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum — 17 mi
  The Panhandle's great collection, some two million objects behind a 1933 Art Deco hall carved with cattle brands, closed to the public since March 2025 over fire-safety violations.

More markers nearby

• Amarillo Natatorium ("The Nat") — 1.4 mi
• Route 66 in Amarillo — 1.4 mi
• Wild Horse Lake — 2.0 mi
• Mathew "Bones" Hooks — 2.2 mi