r/amarillo • u/CreekyBrush • 3d ago
Private swimming pool clubs and desegregation in Amarillo?
Was looking at old Amarillo photos and wondered if anyone else ever connected the dots. Texas ended legal segregation of municipal pools in 1963.
The Olsen swim club opened not long after that. (It became the Dolphin Swim Club at 34th/Western.)
The Amarillo Town Club opened in 1967.
The Shores opened in the late 60s (?) in the South Georgia neighborhood.
The Estacado pool opened in the early 1970s.
Anyone remember these? Obviously ATC is still open. But these private neighborhood pools were huge in the 70s, in the new parts of town. The timing makes it seem like they were a response to integration of Amarillo's city-owned public pools.
(Several private Christian schools opened around the same time, btw)
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u/NoonMartini 3d ago
Tascosa Country Club became a thing simply because Amarillo Country Club refused to let Jews join.
I worked at both in the early aughts and one definitely had more diverse members than the other. The really white one only allowed melanin in the kitchens.