Historic US highway endpoint in Amarillo, TX
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1927-1939
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Amarillo may well be the grand champion of decommissioned highways (or grand loser, depending how one looks at it): of the eight US routes that have served the city, five of them no longer exist.
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That could be a misleading statement, though, so to clarify: it is not that the roadways themselves have disappeared. Rather, Amarillo was originally served by several shorter branch routes, which were later swallowed up by extensions of longer routes. As a result, several US route numbers that once graced the streets of Amarillo have been retired -- perhaps more than any other city.
When the US routes were first commissioned in 1926, Amarillo found itself at the junction of north-south US 385 [i] (which ran along Fillmore Street), and east-west US 66 (which headed west of Fillmore via South 6th Avenue, and originally went east of Fillmore using South 10th Avenue). Also, US 366 [i] came into town heading northeast from El Paso. It met US 385 at Canyon (about 16 miles south of Amarillo), but according to route logs, instead of ending there, it overlapped with US 385 up to Amarillo. So it came in on Fillmore, and it may have ended where it junctioned US 66 at S. 10th. But it also may have been signed up to the main highway junction at the center of town: S. 6th and Fillmore. |
c. 1927, Rand McNally
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That RMN map also shows a fourth route: US 370, coming northwestward from Wichita Falls. That was not the only early map to indicate that US 370 served Amarillo...
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c. 1927, National Map Company
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...but note that NMC map showed US 66 and US 370 joining northwest of Claude and overlapping into Amarillo. Sources conflict as to the exact routing of US 66 during the late 1920s-early '30s, and therefore the terminus of US 370 is in question. Partly this is because AASHO's 1926 route log listed "Claude" as the west end of US 370 (not Amarillo). Also, it appears that the route east of Amarillo (which would eventually carry US 66 traffic for decades) was either unbuilt or in poor or impassable condition during those early years (the legend for the RMN map above specified that the line used for US 66 indicated a "dirt or poor road"). If that was the case, then it is possible that US 66 traffic was temporarily directed south to Claude (or thereabouts), and then northwest into Amarillo. Several early maps suggest this, although almost all of them differ on the specifics. Each of these indicated that the US 66-370 junction was in Washburn...
c. 1928, Clasons
c. 1928
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c. 1932, US Bureau of Public Roads (linked to source)
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...but other maps showed the junction in different locations, such as Goodnight or Claude:
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c. 1930, Clasons
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c. 1927, Clasons
Regardless, it seems clear that Amarillo was always the intended endpoint for US 370, and that was certainly the case by the early 1930s:
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c. 1933, TXDoT
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By that time, US 66 had been straightened east of Amarillo, such that it no longer went through Washburn (it now left town using N. 8th, rather than S. 10th). So US 370 came in to Amarillo along the route of what may have temporarily carried US 66 traffic: via S. 10th, meeting US 385 at Fillmore. It could have ended there, but again, it would have made more sense to overlap it north on Fillmore to end at the "new" US 66 at S. 6th:
c. 1938, TXDoT
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Meanwhile, in 1928, US 164 [i] was commissioned: it served traffic coming into Amarillo from the northeast. US 164 arrived via North 8th Avenue (now Amarillo Boulevard), so the designation could have ended where it met US 385 (at Fillmore). However, it is more likely that US 164 would have been co-signed down to meet US 66 at S. 6th (possibly the same endpoint as US 366, which makes one wonder why US 164 was not numbered as a northeastward extension of US 366 instead).
By the late 1920s, Amarillo was served by those five US routes, which led out of the city in five different directions, and which branched out to seven within a 16-mile radius. But as soon as 1930 rolled around, the route numbers began to change, and by the end of that decade, four of them were history. First, US 60 was extended eastward from Missouri to Amarillo. The westernmost segment of this extension was along what had been US 164, so that was the first of Amarillo's route numbers to be retired. US 60 would have had the same endpoint as US 164 for a year or two, before it was extended again: this time westward out of Amarillo. And since that extension was along US 366, it brought about the demise of that route. In about 1935, US 385 was replaced by a southern extension of US 87. Then in 1939 a southeastward-expanding US 287 eliminated the US 370 designation. And the fifth (and final) US route to be removed from Amarillo was US 66, which was decommissioned in 1985. What this means is: every one of the seven original US routes that branched out of Amarillo in the 1920s has been renumbered. |
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So hopefully the pattern has been made clear: while it is possible that some routes ended at Fillmore north of downtown (on N. 8th) and others may have ended to the south (on S. 10th), it is more likely that all four of them would have been signed to the central highway junction (at S. 6th). This photo was looking west on 6th:
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Sanderson, Mar. 2012
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It was unclear to me why there was a US 66 sign in this particular location (it has since been replaced with the more common brown version), because US 66 never used 6th east of Fillmore. But it was explained to me that people following westbound Historic 66 today cannot use Fillmore since it is one-way northbound. So instead drivers are directed to follow Pierce St. south, then 6th west... so this is a reassurance marker for them. Anyway, straight ahead (on the other side of Fillmore) was the original westbound US 66. Eastbound was to the left before 1931, but to the right after then. Also to the right was most likely the west beginning of US 164 from 1928 to 1930, and the west beginning of US 60 from 1930 to 1932. To the left was probably the north beginning of US 366 from 1926 to 1932, and the west beginning of US 370 until 1939. This photo was taken looking north on Fillmore:
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Sanderson, Mar. 2012
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Today that is one-way northbound, but originally Fillmore was a two-way street, and it carried both directions of US 385. Historically the four-block segment between S. 10th and S. 6th also carried US 66, which turned west (left) there. Later, eastbound US 66 was straight ahead. Also straight ahead was the west beginning of US 164 (and later, US 60). That would have been the perspective of a driver at the north end of US 366, and later at the west end of US 370. Next, we are looking the opposite direction (south on Fillmore):
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Sanderson, Mar. 2012
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That was US 385; originally westbound US 66 was to the right on 6th, while eastbound was straight ahead. Later, the segment of Fillmore between Amarillo Blvd. [nee N. 8th] and that point also carried US 66. Straight ahead was the beginning of US 366, and later US 370. That is the perspective of a driver at the historic west end of US 164, and later at the end of US 60.
Research and/or photo credits: William Bacon; Robert Droz; Nathan Edgars; Mike Roberson; Dale Sanderson
Page originally created 2006;
last updated Aug. 13, 2021.
last updated Aug. 13, 2021.
