Casas Amarillas

Type: General Entry

Published: 1952

Updated: December 1, 1994

The name Casas Amarillas, Spanish for "yellow houses," was given by early explorers to a geological formation near Levelland in Hockley County that at a distance looked like yellow houses. Spanish missionaries visited Indians at the site in the seventeenth century. The formation, long considered a landmark on the South Plains, became the location of a trading post for buffalo hunters, freighters, and cattlemen. It was acquired by the XIT Ranch syndicate in 1882 and by George Washington Littlefield in 1901. A marker was placed at the site of Casas Amarillas by the Texas Centennial Commission in 1936.

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Harold Schoen, comp., Monuments Erected by the State of Texas to Commemorate the Centenary of Texas Independence (Austin: Commission of Control for Texas Centennial Celebrations, 1938).

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.

Anonymous, “Casas Amarillas,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed May 28, 2022, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/casas-amarillas.

Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

Original Publication Date:: 1952
Most Recent Revision Date:: December 1, 1994

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