Amarillo’s Most Unexpected Nickname Involves New York City

Amarillo, Texas is incredibly unique. We have a pretty wild history filled with all kinds of tall tales, scandals, and one-of-a-kind characters. Our landscape is dotted with half-buried vehicles, tourist traps, and odd sculptures. Because of these unique qualities, our city has received some interesting nicknames over time. The most unexpected of these involves New York City.

The Many Ways To Say Amarillo, Texas

Throughout our city's history, we have been on the receiving end of many interesting nicknames. Some of them make sense; several of them don't. There are even those that I don't think ever really existed but are somehow still associated with Amarillo.

For instance, if you go to Wikipedia you'll see that our nickname is "Yellow Rose of Texas". The only time I've ever heard anyone refer to Amarillo as the Yellow Rose of Texas is on that Wikipedia page. At one point we decided to give ourselves a nickname, which is the dorkiest thing someone can do. It's never cool to nickname yourself, especially when that nickname is "The Friendly City". That one didn't last long.

How New York City Inspired An Amarillo Nickname

The most unexpected nickname for Amarillo is actually inspired by New York City, which is what makes it so unexpected. I can't think of two places that could be any more different from each other than Bomb City and The Big Apple.

To my knowledge, the first time this nickname appeared was in January 2020. An article was published by the New York Times about immigration and refugees, and the primary focus of the article was Amarillo, Texas. Those of us from Amarillo know exactly why that makes sense.

Amarillo has a long history of being a city that welcomes refugees with open arms. There are multiple languages spoken at schools across the city. There are places of worship representing faiths from all over the world. It's not the kind of thing you would expect from a city famous for a mutant steak people try to eat for bragging rights.

This is why Amarillo was dubbed "the Queens of the Texas High Plains". It's a nickname that points right at our culturally diverse population in the heart of the Texas panhandle. I'm not mad about it. I think it works. It's better than some of the others we've been given.