From the brick Herring Hotel to the all-glass second plaza of Amarillo National Bank, Amarillo has always had a history of high rises that stand as peaks of the region. While development in the city has died down in recent times, one does not need to look far back to see a city filled with towers rising closer and closer to the stars.
Amarillo’s first high rise, the Herring Hotel, finished construction in 1926. One of many oil boom hotels that arose in the 1920s, the 14-story building stays one of few left standing. Cattleman, banker and oil baron, Cornelius Taylor Herring built the hotel. Herring owned many buildings in Amarillo as well as 98,000 acres of the LS ranch north of town. The hotel closed in 1968, though its top eight floors converted into offices the next year. The office spaces stayed through the 70s, eventually closing in the early 80s. Now the building sits vacant, facing issues with restoration. Still, its classic brick facade holds an iconic place in the city, standing as an artifact from a time long gone.
Built a year after the Herring, the Barfield hotel remains another iconic hotel of the era. Amarillo financier and philanthropist, Melissa Dora Oliver-Eakle, constructed the 10-story building. Originally known as the Oliver-Eakle building, the hotel had a name change in the 70s to that of her great-grandson, Gordan Barfield. The hotel closed in the early 90s, staying vacant for thirty years, until a remodeling and reopening in 2021 that converted the building into a Marriott hotel. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, alongside the Herring Hotel, SPS Tower, The Fisk Building and The Santa Fe Building…