'Step into the Real Texas' - 'Amarillo Chamber of Commerce'. Amarillo, the Queen City of the Texas Panhandle, is known far beyond its immediate vicinity the high tableland called the Llano Estacado. The famous highway Route 66 ran through the very heart of Amarillo. Alan Jackson, Emmylou Harris, Neil Sedaka, and James Durst each recorded a different song titled Amarillo. Named by ""True West magazine"" as one of the fifty most Western towns in America, this city of 176,000 people remains rooted in its Western pastyet at the same time Amarillos background and outlook have a distinctly Midwestern flavour. In this book, the first comprehensive history of Amarillo, Paul H. Carlson explores the city and its environs, from the first peoples who settled in the area to Amarillos current position as the marketing and commercial hub of a broad region. Through its economic and political strength and its deep cultural influences, Amarillo will likely continue to dominate much of the Texas Panhandle well into the twenty-first century. A professor of history at Texas Tech University, Paul H. Carlson is the author of ""Deep Time and the Texas High Plains"" and ""The Cowboy Way"", both published by Texas Tech University Press.