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New Amarillo becomes Potter county seat
On this day in 1893, the second incarnation of the town of Amarillo was
selected as the seat of Potter County. The first Amarillo
was established by J. T. Berry in April 1887. He chose a well-watered
site along the right-of-way of the Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad,
which had begun building across the Panhandle. On August 30, 1887,
Berry's townsite was elected seat of Potter County. The railroad arrived
shortly after the county election, and Amarillo boomed as a
cattle-marketing center. Although Berry's cowtown seemed to be well
established, Henry B. Sanborn, part owner of the Frying Pan Ranch,
argued that Berry's site was on low ground that would flood during
rainstorms. Sanborn and his partner, Joseph F. Glidden, began buying
land to the east to move Amarillo out of its "mudhole." The depot and
courthouse initially remained at the old site, since the law decreed
that they could not be moved until five years after the 1887 election,
but the second county-seat election in 1893 officially transferred the
title to Sanborn's town.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- AMARILLO, TX
- POTTER COUNTY
- SANBORN, HENRY BRADLEY
- FRYING PAN RANCH
- FORT WORTH AND DENVER RAILWAY
- PANHANDLE
- URBANIZATION
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- North Texas settlement drew life from the railroad (1885)
- Spanish king orders compilation of Texas-Louisiana boundary data (1805)
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