Canyon

Canyon is at the junction of U.S. Highway 60 and Interstate Highway 27, near the center of Randall County and southwest of the old T Anchor Ranch headquarters. In December 1887 Lincoln Guy Conner surveyed and settled at the site. He laid out the town in the spring of 1889, his dugout serving as home, general store, and post office. A. L. Hammond established the second business and a blacksmith shop, and suggested the name Canyon City, after nearby Palo Duro Canyon, when Conner refused to have the settlement named after himself. When Randall County was organized in July 1889 Conner's home was the voting place for that precinct, and Canyon City was chosen as the county seat. Lumber for commercial buildings was hauled from Quanah by mule-drawn freight wagons. A temporary, two-room frame building served as a courthouse, where church services and other community gatherings were held. Conner established the town's first real estate office and built the Victoria Hotel. Beginning in August 1890 several newspapers, the Echo, the Keystone, the Headlight, and the Battleship, appeared briefly. In 1896 Mrs. R. W. Morgan began publishing the Stayer; George A. Brandon renamed this paper the Canyon City News after buying it in 1903. The first telephone line reached Canyon City from Amarillo in 1896.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.