Route 66 passed through Shamrock on 12th Street which once was some distance north of the main downtown area of Shamrock. Since Main Street in Shamrock goes north-south it would not work for US Highway 66 and it became US Highway 83. Matchcovers included in this database must indicate that the business was on US Highway 66 or 12th Street or otherwise be known to be on 66. There are actually a large number of matchcovers from Shamrock that I have seen over the years that are from the downtown area and hence are not from Route 66. These businesses include early hotels, taverns and bars, automobile dealers and even gasoline stations.
The two major east-west streets that carried Route 66 through Amarillo were NE 8th (later named Amarillo Blvd.) and SW 6th Avenue. NE 8th and SW 6th do not align, of course, so there is an approximately fourteen block north-south segment of Fillmore (northbound) and Taylor (southbound) that connects these two east-west roads. Not all of NE 8th or SW 6th or Fillmore or Taylor were Route 66: rather, only selected street addresses are valid. More specifically addresses from about 200 NE 8th (Amarillo Blvd.) and higher are valid and address numbers from about 300 SE 6th and then going west are valid. For Fillmore and Taylor it is approximately 600S to 800 N Fillmore.
There are a few gasoline station matchcovers that list the business on 6th or Sixth with a cross street but with no quadrant preface (i.e., SW). I assume these gasoline stations (C.R. Honea Magnolia, E. B. Meyer, Herbert Martin Phillips 66) were on SW 6th and rather than NW 6th because the highway traffic on Route 66 would probably have been required for the business to be economically viable.
Several matchcovers from the famous Herring Hotel indicate that it was on US Highway 66 so we are including them all here. But the Herring Hotel, while always associated with Route 66, is actually located at 3rd and Pierce and half-block east of Fillmore and Route 66.
The Amarillo Natatorium (“The Nat”) opened in 1922 on SW 6th which would become Route 66. Initially it was an open-air swimming pool but later was enclosed. A subsequent owner replaced with swimming pool with a dance floor and the venue played host to a number of pre-War “Big Bands” and later Rock ‘n’ Roll acts post-War. The Nat today is a marketplace for vendors. The matchcovers uploaded here do not list an address but The Nat is located at 2705 SW 6th.
The Trail Drive In Theatre (listed under Tascosa Theatres) was located at 7720 E. Amarillo Blvd. on Route 66.
Eveleno’s Restaurant is a hard-to-see red 30-strike matchcover but the business was located at 2202 West 6th and on Route 66.
The original Big Texan opened on Route 66 in 1960 but because most traffic moved to the new Interstate 40 the business moved to a freeway exit in 1971. The rear strike matchcovers uploaded to this website are from the Interstate 40 location. However researchers discovered that the present Big Texan is actually on the very first alignment of Route 66 used between 1926-1928! See https://www.route66news.com/2016/07/18/big-texan-steak-ranch-route-66 .
Matchcovers included from Vega nearly always say 66 on them. If they do not say 66 we have to be careful because much of commercial Vega was located on north-south Main Street which was not 66. But we included traveler-oriented businesses (gas stations, cafes, motels) from Vega that do not have addresses on them as they would probably have to be on Route 66 to be a profitable business.
The town of Glenrio (“Glen Rio”) straddles the Texas/New Mexico border. Nearly all of the matchcovers that I have seen say “New Mexico” on them since the post office that served both parts of Glenrio was in New Mexico. All of the bars were located in New Mexico since Deaf Smith County, Texas, was “dry.” The cheapest gasoline was found in Texas since the Texas state gas tax was lower. So we have made our best guesses and divided the Glenrio matchcover images between the Texas and New Mexico sections of the database. Here within Texas the website visitor will find many different matchcovers from the famous Texas Longhorn complex plus one other gasoline station. There are also several matchcovers that we believe were from businesses in New Mexico in the New Mexico section. The easiest way to see everything together is to simply type “Glenrio” into the “Keyword Search” box.