Skip to main content

Cadillac Ranch


Perhaps one of the more visually interesting sights along the highways of North America is the Cadillac Ranch, which can be seen off of Interstate 40 and old US 66, just west of Amarillo, Texas. Cadillac Ranch wasn't a stopover for travelers of the US 66 of yore, as it was an art and sculpture installation that was erected in 1973 and 1974.

Texas millionaire Stanley Marsh, 3 was the mastermind behind Cadillac Ranch. In 1973, Marsh invited an artist group from San Francisco called the Ant Farm to help him in the creation of a unique work of art for his sprawling ranch just west of Amarillo.

Ant Farm acquired ten used Cadillacs, ranging from 1948 to 1963. Erected along historic US Route 66, the cars were purchased from junk yards, and averaged about $200. The cars were then buried nose down, facing west along the old highway. In 1974, Cadillac Ranch was completed and visitors began to arrive from all over. Curiosity seekers and passers-by were leaving their mark on the graffiti-covered cars. In 1997, the Cadillac Ranch was moved about two miles to the west, in order to have a little more breathing room from Amarillo. Other than that, Cadillac Ranch has remained the same since the beginning.





Site Navigation:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Did Caltrans just kill the G26 cutout US Route shields?

The US Route System was formally created by the American Association of State Highway Officials during November 1926.  Through the history of the system the only state to which has elected to maintain cutout US Route shields has been California.  The G26 series cutout US Route shields have become a favorite in the road enthusiast hobby and are generally considered to be much more visually pleasing than the standard Federal Highway Administration variant.  However, the G26 shield series appears to have been killed off on January 18, 2026, when Caltrans updated their Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices.  This blog will examine the history of the US Route shield specifications in California and what is happening with the 2026 changes.  The blog cover photo is facing towards the terminus of California State Route 136 and at a G26-2 specification US Route 395 shield.  In the background Mount Whitney can be seen in the Sierra Nevada range.   ...

May 2023 Ontario Trip (Part 3 of 3)

  Over the years, I have made plenty of trips to Ontario, crisscrossing the southern, central and eastern parts of the province. Living in Upstate New York, it's pretty easy to visit our neighbor to the north, or is that our neighbor to the west? Ottawa is one of my favorite cities to visit anywhere in the world, plus I've discovered the charm of Kingston, the waterfalls of Hamilton (which is on the same Niagara Escarpment that brings us Niagara Falls), the sheer beauty of the Bruce Peninsula, and more. But I hadn't explored much of Cottage Country. So I decided to change that, and what better time to go than over Memorial Day weekend, when the daylight is long and I have an extra day to explore. On the third and final day of my trip, I started in Huntsville and made my way through Muskoka District and Haliburton County, passing by many lakes along the way. I stopped in towns such as Dorset, Haliburton and Bancroft before making a beeline down to Belleville and then over th...

Ghost Town Tuesday; Nichols, FL

A couple years ago I spent a lot of spare time exploring phosphate mining ghost towns in the Bone Valley of Polk County, Florida.  One ghost town in particular called Nichols on Polk County Route 676 west of Mulberry caught my eye due to a relative lack of documentation on ghosttowns.com. Nichols was created in 1905 during the early phosphate mining boom in the Bone Valley region.  For the time Nichols was unusual since it had company housing in the Nichols Mine site and private residences outside the gate.  Nichols is only about two miles west of Mulberry which probably made it a somewhat reasonable commute even by the wonky standards of the early 20th Century.  Most of the Bone Valley region was relatively remote which made commuting or homesteading impractical which is why there are so many ghost towns in the area.  The company housing section of Nichols was phased out and abandoned by 1950. The Nichols town site is largely abandoned and could "possibl...