Ambling along to Armstrong County

Bank building

I thought that Amarillo was the seat of Armstrong County, but I was wrong. It’s actually the seat of Potter County and is near the geographic center of the Texas Panhandle. Its name may come from the yellow wildflowers that are plentiful in the area since amarillo is yellow in Spanish. Someday we’ll actually visit that county courthouse and I’ll write about Potter County – but not today. Here’s a nice picture of a bank we passed; I think the architecture is Classical Revival but it may be Federal.

The first inhabitants of Armstrong County were Paleo-Indians around 10,000 BC with the Apachean cultures predominant until the 1700s with

Mesas

the Comanche arrived. The area was also visited about this time by Francisco Coronado and his party as they searched in vain for Cibola; they did find the Grand Canyon, but no gold. Although the Spanish left, the Native Americans, including the Comanches, Kiowa, and Cheyenne, stayed around until the late 1800s when various battles left them decimated and moved onto reservations.

Armstrong County was another of the many counties formed from Bexar County in 1876. It was organized in 1890, with Claude as its county seat.

Downtown Claude

The county was named after one of several Texas pioneer families – although which one is still debated; Claude was originally called Armstrong City. The entire area, not surprisingly, was ranchland. The JA Ranch, with over a million acres (4,000 km²), at one time included not only Armstrong County but five other adjoining counties. In 1876, Charles Goodnight with his herd of 1,600 cattle came into the Palo Duro Canyon in about 1876, firmly establishing the land as ranch-related throughout the rest of the 19^th century. However, a year later the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway split the JA Ranch, establishing a terminal as well as the first town on former ranch property, Goodnight. Shortly thereafter, Robert E. Montgomery platted the town of Washburn, named after railroad exec D.W. Washburn; this led to Armstrong City being renamed to Claude in honor of railroad engineer, Claude Ayers. In 1890, Claude won out over Washburn for the county seat of Armstrong. The story is told that the tie-breaking vote for Claude was cast by the former co-owner of the nearby JA Ranch, Charles Goodnight. That same year, The Claude Argus, a weekly newspaper established by W.S. Decker merged with the Goodnight News to become The Claude News, which is still active, today.

The Boy Scouts of America Troop 17 was organized in 1912 by Claude physician W.A. Warner. As scoutmaster he had a hand in training many of the future civic leaders of the town. Although both he and his wife Phebe

Armstrong County Courthouse

Kerrick Warner, were natives of Illinois, they were decedents of South West Haiti (although I don’t find evidence of this in more than one source). They, along with other civic leaders had a hand in getting the county courthouse built in 1912. This courthouse was designed by architect Elmer George Withers in the Classical Revival style. The courthouse is constructed of brick and stone. Like most towns in the area, Claude rocked along just fine until The Great Depression which had a severe effect on the county's economy; it took years to recover. By 1963 Claude still looked like a small Texas town, to the point that several scenes from Hud with Paul Newman were filmed there and in Goodnight. There have also been things written about the area. Laura Vernon Hamner spent years researching and interviewing cowboys and ranchers to complete her writings about the Texas Panhandle, including Tom Blasingame, the oldest cowboy in the history of the American West. By the beginning of the 20^th century, cotton and wheat began replacing ranching so much so that in 2005 only 68% of the land was given over to ranching.

Armstrong County is actually included in the Amarillo, Metropolitan Area but we spent the night in Amarillo. There are plenty of hotels and restaurants there. For information about my rating system, see Reading the Reviews.

Where we stayed:

Three and one-half carrots

Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Amarillo I-40 West, TX (2000 Soncy

Bedroom

Rd, Amarillo, TX 79124, 806-356-9977) is exactly what you’d expect. It’s clean, comfortable and priced well. My favorite thing about it was that it is pet friendly. We met several folks with dogs inside the hotel. The people at the desk were polite and helpful. The internet was free, as was parking. Breakfast was okay; the coffee was good.

What we ate:

Four carrots

J’s Barr and Grill (3130 S Soncy Rd Ste 100, Amarillo, TX 79124, 806-358-2222) is advertised as an ‘Easy going watering hole with sports on

Left: Menu and Dave
Right T to B: Chicken salad, Chicken fried
chicken

TV & American bar fare offered in an informal locale’. I’d add that the food is exceptional. Dave had chicken fried chicken with cream gravy that had chilies in it. He said it was not only well prepared, but the gravy was great; the mashed potatoes were ‘real’, and the broccoli was fresh. I had a very nice chicken salad that I would definitely order, again. The chicken was well prepared, the salad was fresh, and the dressing was tangy – I ate every bite. Evidently they have a real chef using fresh ingredients rather than pre-frozen wings glopped over with stupidly hot sauce of some sort. The only real downside of this place is the noise level – it’s a sports bar! Service and prices were very good.

Cattle in the fog

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