Back in 1887, a guy by the name of Lincoln Conner established a town. He created a dugout that was his home, the post office and the general store. Another fella, A. L. Hammond, joined him and established a blacksmith shop. They needed a name for the town. Conner refused to name it for himself so Hammond suggested Canyon City for nearby Palo Duro Canyon.
In 1889, Randall County was organized and Canyon City became the county seat. They had to haul lumber by wagon all the way from Quanah (160 miles away) to build stores and homes. Yikes! The county was named for Confederate Brigadier General Horace Randal. When filing papers, there was a "typo" and an extra "L" was added to Randall. Oops!
The first courthouse in Randall County was built in 1892 as a small wooden structure. This courthouse was built in 1908. By 1980, the county needed something bigger so they moved out of this building and into grocery-store like place and the courthouse was left vacant. In 2010, the outside was restored as part of the Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation Program. Unfortunately, the inside is still awaiting some help.
The Canyon News is the local paper and has been serving the town in various iterations since 1896.
This is the Canyon Depot for the Santa Fe Railroad. The first railroad that came through was in 1898, the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway. It connected Canyon with Amarillo and points west. This made Canyon a big shipping point for cattle and other agricultural products. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe line came in about 1906. The first depot was a small wooden structure and was replaced with this building in 1925, serving as both a passenger and freight depot. Passenger service stopped in the mid-1950s. The depot is being repurposed as a restaurant.
This is Tex Randall. He was built in 1959 as a roadside attraction and is 47 feet tall. He's wearing real Levi's jeans. He was created by a teacher that owned a curio shop and wanted to entice people to come visit. Soon after, he even built a hotel. With the change in road traffic, his business declined. Now he welcomes people into Canyon Texas.
Fourth Avenue is the main drag in Canyon. It's on this street that West Texas A&M University is. On that campus is the Panhandle Plains Museum. The museum opened in 1933 in a building erected at the same time and it depicts life in and history of the panhandle of Texas. Unfortunately, the building is in terrible shape and the museum had to close. You see signs all over town saying "Save Our Museum".
The town of Canyon was named for the real canyon...Palo Duro. It's the second largest canyon in the United States. It's 120 miles long and 20 miles wide.
The photos don't do it justice. In 1876, John George Adair and Charles Goodnight established one of the largest ranches in the panhandle (1M acres) and part of it encompassed the eastern rim of the canyon.
In 1933, the state bought the land and it became Palo Duro Canyon State Park. This is Lighthouse Rock, the most recognizable rock formation in the canyon. There was a 2-mile hike (one-way) to the rock but we found that you could see it from a mile away.
Hiking (or in our case, walking) around the canyon was amazing. All the rock formations and the colors were just breathtaking. The photos seriously don't do the canyon justice.
There are just under 15K people that live in Canyon Texas. It was one of the bigger towns we visited on this road trip. I think it seems bigger than it is. Their grocery store options are a United Supermarket and a Walmart. They have the big fast food chains but no national chain restaurants that I saw. But, they have Palo Duro Canyon!
The canyon was amazing and definitely worth a visit. The town was okay but don't take my word for it. Check it out! Maybe by then, the museum will have found a new home.
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