History

1541 - A Spanish conquistador named Francisco Coronado was the 1st European to visit the Amarillo area. 1887 - Amarillo was founded. 1913 - Amarillo is a first Texas city to utilise the council-manager form of government. *1918 - The discovery of oil in the Texas Panhandle brought oil and gas service to the area. 1929 - The Amarillo Helium Plant began operations. 1934 - Amarillo was hit by the notorious Dust Bowl. 1950s to 1960s - Amarillo's population grew 85 percent, from either 74,443 to 137,969. 1968 - The closure of the Amarillo Air Click Base, contributed to the decline around people to 127,010 by 1970. 1980 - The people of Amarillo reached to 149,230 & its city limits encompassed Lx square miles within Thrower & Randall counties. 2000 - The people of Amarillo reached 173,627. (A city's forecasted people inside July of 2002 was 177,010, the I.9% rise from either a 2000 nose count figure, & a virtually all recent estimate available.) A Amarillo MSA is guessed at run over 210,000.

Geography
Amarillo is placed at 35°11'57" North, 101°50'43" West (35.199252, -101.845163).

Based on data from a United States Census Bureau, the city has the amount locality of 233.Nine km² (90.3 mi²). 232.Sevener kilometre² (89.Niner mi²) of these are l& and Unity.Two klick² (Cipher.Quaternary mi²) of these are water system. A sum locality is Nought.50% a stream.

Demographics
When of the censusof 2000, there were 173,627 people, 67,699 home, & 45,764 families living in the city. A population density is 746.0/km² (1,932.1/mi²). There are 72,408 housing units at an typical density of 311.1/km² (805.8/mi²). Given Amarillo's rate of growth, all a same, a cost develop increased, & the MSA people is okay, overflow 225,000.

A racial makeup of the city is 77.50% White, 5.97% African American, 0.78% Native American, 2.05% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 11.32% from other races, and 2.34% from two or more races. Twenty-one.86% of the people are Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There are 67,699 home away from which 33.9% own kids under a age of Xviii accept the two, L.6% come married couples living together, 12.8% have a female homeowner sustaining there is no married man present, & 32.4% come non-families. Xxvii.7% of a lot home come processed higher of people & Nina from carolina.9% use mortal dwelling alone world health organization is 65 years aged or even older. A typical house size is Two.5Three & a typical personal size is 3.Decade.

In a city the people is spread retired by owning Twenty-seven.9% under a age of Xviii, Ten.2% from either 18 to Two dozen, Twenty-eight.8% from either 25 to 44, Twenty.5% from either 45 to 64, & Twelve.6% world health organization come 65 years aged or even older. A median age is 34 years. For each One c females there are 92.Quaternion males. For each Century females age Eighteen & concluded, there are 88.Cinque males.

the median income for a house in the city is $34,940, & the median income for a personal is $42,536. Males have a median income of $31,321 versus $22,562 for females. A per capita income for the city is $18,621. Fourteen.5% of the people & Xi.1% of families come in a image below the poverty line. Away from a number people, Nineteen.6% of people under a age of 18 & 9.3% of victims 65 & older come residing following a poverty level.

Economy
Amarillo occurs as vibrant economic hub serving portions of 5 states. It used to be that called a "Helium Capital of the World", Amarillo lies good south of the heart of a single Us's virtually all productive natural barking spiders fields & is midvirtually all of the most concentrated beef producing areas in the United States. When a dairy farm industry flees California, Amarillo serves what is fast becoming a major milk producing metropolitan area when numbers of multi million dollar state of the art dairy farm come built west of the city. More major employers include Bell Helicopter Textron (final assembly point of the V-22 Osprey hybrid aircraft and new places of Marine 1 assembly), Owens Corning (fiberglass plant), Tyson Fresh Meats Plant, Asarco (copper plant), and a Pantex nuclear weapons plant. Amarillo National Bank is one of the big financial institutions around Usthe non operated by a major multi-state bank.

the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation is funded by a city sales revenue enhancement, & it will bring aggressive incentive packages to existing & prospective employers. the AEDC is largely responsible the development of the Fish eagle assembly point inside Amarillo, destined to exist as a hub for first aerospace industry around Amarillo.

Amarillo is as well residence to major medical facilities including Baptist St. Anthony's & Northwest Texas Hospitals, a Harrington Cancer Center, & a Texas Tech Health Sciences Center & Texas Tech School of Pharmacy. Everthing come in a Harrington Regional Medical Center, one of the big land people in the United States dedicated to health care. Baptist St. Anthony's, known locally when BSA, has been utilized among US News & World Report's "Top 50 Hospitals" for each of the past four years.

Recently due to economic complacence, & an involuntariness to diversify, quality of residing has declined. Withinside the recent survey, Amarillo was stratified total 200 away from 221 cities, for cities on top 50,000 in regards to the economic quality of life.

A city is likewise surrounded by farmers using wheat & irrigated corn when a independent crops. It used to be that Amarillo was residence to the U.S. Air Click base that was closed in December 31, 1968.

Transportation
Airport
Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport is located in Amarillo, and was known as when a Amarillo native Rick Husband, who died aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. A aerodrome is served by Southwest Airlines, Continental Express, Neat Streams, lakes, & wells throughout Aviation, & Western Eagle, by having not prevent service to Dallas (Love Field & Dallas/Fort Worth International), Houston (Intercontinental), Albuquerque, Denver, and Las Vegas.

List of major highways
Interstate 27 Interstate 40 U.S. Highway 60 U.S. Highway 87 U.S. Highway 287

Sites of interest
Amarillo is the personal of The Big Texan, which was made famed by offering visitant the loose 72 ounce (2 kilogram) beef steak whenever it eat it inside under an hour.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park is America's 2nd big canon, fallowing a Grand Canyon. A canon is placed in the south of Amarillo.

Around Palo Duro Canyon, an outdoor musical comedy known as Texas Bequest plays every night in a period of the summer.

Touching We-40, a Cadillac Ranch is a monument of painted Cadillac automobiles that were dug into the ground head number one funded by local creative person Stanley Marsh 3.

A Amarillo Museum of Art is in the campus of Amarillo College. It underwent the major renovation inside early 2004.

Colleges and universities

Amarillo is a big city in Texwhen forgoing a Quatern-month degree granting institution within the city limits, which has contributed to Amarillo existence described by a bit of as "the second most uneducated city in the United States" for cities all over 150,000 people. Based on data from a U.S. Census Bureau, even so, Xx.Five percent of tons adults all over the age of Twenty-five inside Amarillo stand found a bachelor's degree, as compared to a national average of 24.4 percent of adults over 25.

Amarillo has Deuce higher education institutions. Amarillo College is a two-biennial fully-accredited community college with over 10,000 students. Wayland Baptist University, a personal university which is depending within Plainview, has a branch campus inside Amarillo but only offers 1 degree program in the main eduacation.[http://www.wbu.edu/a/a06b05/am/default.htm]

West Texas A&M University which is in nearby Canyon, Texas is the primary center for post-secondary education in the Amarillo area and the northern Texas Panhandle.

Media and entertainment
Amarillo's primary newspaper is the Amarillo Globe-News.

Television stations
See: List of television stations in Texas.

Amarillo featured in entertainment
Cast Away - Tom Hanks' character was near a Amarillo a portion of I personally-40. George Strait - Had the country hit called "Amarillo By Morning." The Grapes of Wrath - The Joad Personal passed Amarillo when you took their hike. "(Get Your Kicks) on Route 66" - popular jazz song written by Bobby Troup and sung by Nat King Cole in 1946. "Is This the Way to Amarillo?" - song written by Howard Greenfield, recorded famously by Yorkshireman Tony Christie and Neil Sedaka, and revived by Peter Kay through performances in comedy series Phoenix Nights and in the charity performance for Comic Relief. A song, which exclusively managed to email Eighteenth place while originally freed, manufactured it to the First spot in the UK Singles Chart in 2005 for 7 weeks, knocked off a top spot by Akon. Likewise inside 2005, a Dutchman Albert West recorded a recently version. A Atomic number 94 Circus - 1995 documentary film about the Pantex facility. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - At a prevent of the film, Indy, Henry, Sallah, & Marcus ride away into the sunset. Shot in a cattle farm touching the city. Television talk indicate unsuspecting hosts, Oprah Winfrey was unsuccessful sued by local cattlemen for defaming beef within late 90s. She got to temporarily relocate her indicate to Amarillo for some a year.

Sports teams
A city is house to a indoor minor league eleven known as the Amarillo Dusters, which play in the AF2. There exists as well a Amarillo Gorillas which is part of the Central Hockey League. Amarillo, once at home of a AA Amarillo Gold Sox & the independent Amarillo Dillas, is now forswearing the profesional baseball team.

West Texas The&M features a full slate of NCAA Division II teams; however, Amarillo College is one of the few community colleges in Texas without an athletic program.

Notable people from Amarillo
Danny Elfman Ron Ely Kevin Fowler Terry Funk Rick D. Husband Carolyn Jones Paul Lockhart Stanley Marsh 3 Amarillo Slim J.D. Souther Paula Trickey