U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in the United States, originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before terminating in Santa Monica in Los Angeles County, California, covering a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km).
Interstate 27 (I-27) is an Interstate Highway, entirely in the US state of Texas, running north from Lubbock to I-40 in Amarillo. These two cities are the only control cities on I-27; other cities and towns served by I-27 include New Deal, Abernathy, Hale Center, Plainview, Kress, Tulia, Happy, and Canyon. In Amarillo, I-27 is commonly known as the Canyon Expressway, although it is also called Canyon Drive on its access roads. I-27 was officially designated the Marshall Formby Memorial Highway after former attorney and State Senator Marshall Formby in 2005. The entire length of I-27 replaced US Highway 87 (US 87) for through traffic. An extension of I-27 north to Raton, New Mexico, and south to Laredo, Texas was approved in 2022.
Potter County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 118,525. Its county seat is Amarillo. The county was created in 1876 and organized in 1887. It is named for Robert Potter, a politician, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and the Texas Secretary of the Navy.
Oldham County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,758. Its county seat is Vega. The county was created in 1876 and organized in 1881. Oldham County is included in the Amarillo, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Carson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 5,807. The county seat is Panhandle. The county was founded in 1876 and later organized in 1888. It is named for Samuel Price Carson, the first secretary of state of the Republic of Texas.
McLean is a town in Gray County, Texas, United States. It is part of the Pampa micropolitan statistical area. Its population was 778 as of the 2010 census.
Shamrock is a city in Wheeler County, Texas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 1,910. The city is located in the eastern portion of the Texas Panhandle centered along the crossroads of Interstate 40 and U.S. Route 83. It is 110 miles (180 km) east of Amarillo, 188 miles (303 km) west of Oklahoma City, and 291 miles (468 km) northwest of Dallas.
Amarillo is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Potter County. It is the 14th-most populous city in Texas and the largest city in the Texas Panhandle. A portion of the city extends into Randall County. The estimated population of Amarillo was 200,393 as of April 1, 2020. The Amarillo-Pampa-Borger combined statistical area had an estimated population of 308,297 as of 2020.
The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a square-shaped area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east. It is adjacent to the Oklahoma Panhandle, land which Texas previously claimed as its own before slavery was outlawed above the current border's latitude line. The Handbook of Texas defines the southern border of Swisher County as the southern boundary of the Texas Panhandle region.
Loop 279, formerly Business U.S. Highway 66, is a state highway in Amarillo, Texas, United States. It runs from Amarillo Boulevard and Bell Street east along 9th Avenue, Bushland Boulevard and 6th Avenue to end at Fillmore Street.
In the US state of Texas, Interstate 40 (I-40) runs west–east through the panhandle in the northwest part of the state. The only large city it passes through is Amarillo, where it meets the north end of I-27.
The geography of Texas is diverse and large. Occupying about 7% of the total water and land area of the U.S., it is the second largest state after Alaska, and is the southernmost part of the Great Plains, which end in the south against the folded Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico. Texas is in the South Central United States of America, and is considered to form part of the U.S. South and also part of the U.S. Southwest.
The National Helium Reserve, also known as the Federal Helium Reserve, is a strategic reserve of the United States holding over 1 billion cubic meters of helium gas. The helium is stored at the Cliffside Storage Facility about 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Amarillo, Texas, in a natural geologic gas storage formation, the Bush Dome reservoir. The reserve was established with the enactment of the Helium Act of 1925. The strategic supply provisioned the noble gas for airships, and in the 1950s became an important source of coolant during the Cold War and Space Race.
The Anadarko Basin is a geologic depositional and structural basin centered in the western part of the state of Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, and extending into southwestern Kansas and southeastern Colorado. The basin covers an area of 50,000 square miles (130,000 km2). By the end of the 20th Century, the Anadarko Basin was producing the largest amount of natural gas in the United States. Notable oil and gas fields within the basin include the Hugoton-Panhandle Gas Field, West Edmond Field, Union City Field and the Elk City Field. The basin is also the only commercial source of iodine in the United States and a major producer of helium.
Masterson is an unincorporated community in southern Moore County, Texas, United States of the Texas Panhandle. It lies along the concurrent U.S. Routes 87 and 287, south of the city of Dumas, the county seat of Moore County. Its elevation is 3,704 feet (1,129 m). Although Masterson is unincorporated, it has a post office, with a ZIP code of 79058.
Loop 335 is a highway loop that encircles the city of Amarillo, Texas, United States. Loop 335 connects to every major highway in the city and passes close to Amarillo International Airport on the east side of the city. Loop 335 is not currently a continuous freeway. Instead, the highway has interchanges at select junctions and short segments of freeway such as its southeastern section.
Helium Act of 1925, 50 USC § 161, is a United States statute drafted for the purpose of conservation, exploration, and procurement of helium gas. The Act of Congress authorized the condemnation, lease, or purchase of acquired lands bearing the potential of producing helium gas. It banned the export of helium, for which the US was the only important source, thus forcing foreign airships to use hydrogen lift gas. The Act empowered the United States Department of the Interior and United States Bureau of Mines with the jurisdiction for the experimentation, production, repurification, and research of the lighter than air gas. The Title 50 codified law provided the authority for the creation of the National Helium Reserve.
U.S. Route 366 or US 366 was the designation of two child routes of the former U.S. Route 66 in New Mexico and Texas during the late 1920s and 1930s. Both alignments of US 366 were original U.S. Routes created in 1927. The first alignment was a route from El Paso, Texas to Amarillo, Texas crossing through New Mexico that existed until 1931. The second was a route from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Willard, New Mexico that was previously assigned a different route number before 1932. That alignment was canceled in 1939.
Petrolia Oil Field is a North Texas segment of land located in Clay County, Texas and the Great Plains. The hydrocarbon exploration site was geographically within 10 miles (16 km) of the Red River of the South. The oil and gas reservoir was located between Texas State Highway 79 and Texas State Highway 148 converging at Petrolia, Texas.
Cliffside Gas Field is located in the Texas Panhandle bearing 9 miles (14 km) west of Texas Highway 87 and 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Amarillo, Texas. The Great Plains Panhandle area is located in Potter County, Texas within the vicinity of the unincorporated community Cliffside, Texas.
