Welcome to The Dirt. In every issue, our anonymous writer will give you the dirt on your burning questions about the Amarillo area. Got something you’re just dying to know? Drop us a line at info@brickandelm.com, and our intrepid writer will dig up the answer.
Why did Amarillo people go so crazy for Long John Silvers? What am I missing?
Neighbor, the entire city had the same question. As anyone who may have experienced a summer in Amarillo (or a Friday during Lent) may know, fried fish is not exactly absent from the local restaurant scene. From upscale places like Drunken Oyster to dives like Scott’s Oyster Bar, the town’s tastebuds were no strangers to fried seafood.
The viral excitement may be tied less to the beloved, briny menu but to a simple case of don’t-know-what-you’ve-got-til-it’s-gone nostalgia. At one point, Amarillo was home to a whopping total of six Long John Silver’s locations. The restaurants closed one by one due to lack of upkeep and troubles with management (allegedly), with the last closing its doors in 2019.
That meant Amarillo locals had to make crumblesome journeys to Lubbock or Clovis for a breaded basket. Not that the process got much easier after LJS opened its new Bell Street location on
Aug. 1. For days, the line consistently stretched several blocks down the street—at times, a multi-hour wait. Honestly, we don’t have a great answer. The whole thing seems, well, a little fishy.
It’s spooky season. If I want to see a ghost in Amarillo, where should I start looking?
Did you know more than 1,000 Comanche horses are said to have been shot by the U.S. Army at the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon in September 1874? For our purposes, that would make PDC a veritable hotbed of phantom hoofbeats. But no one ever talks about horse hauntings.
The Nat, first known as the Amarillo Natatorium when it opened in July 1922, has been a swimming pool, dance hall, and home for antiques and oddities. Come for the iconic maple flooring and vague scent of chlorine, and stay (according to legend) for dancing spirits. Locals have reported seeing a young woman, a dancing couple and a few folks still swimming laps around the long-covered pool, as well as hearing echoing drumbeats and singing from visiting bands, still entertaining decades into the beyond.
The Barfield may also hold potential for wandering ghosts. The luxury hotel was built as Amarillo’s first skyscraper in 1927. We haven’t heard any credible eyewitness accounts, but we have definitely heard stories about the Skirvin in Oklahoma City. If their historic, refurbished, center-city hotel can have ghosts, why can’t ours?
Dan Quandt, the retired senior vice president of Amarillo’s Convention and Visitors Council, used to tell ghost stories about the historic Lee & Mary E. Bivins mansion on South Polk, which was previously a public library before it was refitted into office space. Once the home of the philanthropic oil and ranching Bivins family, it also served as an event center, community gathering place and neighborhood cornerstone for generations of Amarilloans. Let’s just say Chamber of Commerce employees don’t spend much time in the third-floor ballroom after dark.
