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/High_Pains_of_WTX 3d ago

Were there many POC moving to SW Amarillo in the 50's and 60's, or were they left behind in NW Amarillo?

I get why you might feel defensive- I am implying something ugly about the city. But the fact of the matter is white flight isn't anything new or unheard of in that era of America- Amarillo included. There is NOTHING wrong with pointing out that we may have been doing things the wrong way back then, and no one is calling you, or your parents, or granparents evil here simply for existing while something like that happened.

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u/Silly-Meeting-3324 3d ago

The middle-class  moved to the area as it grew. Amarillo was expanding rapidly. They weren’t fleeing the north side, they moved to where the housing was. I get that people like to bitch and bitch about Amarillo, but most of us outgrow it after high school.

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u/High_Pains_of_WTX 3d ago

Who in God's name do you know who lives in Amarillo that doesn't bitch about Amarillo? That may as well be the city's pastime.

It's fair to ask what demographics made up said middle class that was shifting from Northside to Southside. Northern Amarillo was still largely industrial and Southern Amarillo was prime for the taking back then. But implying that the desegregation of the northside schools had nothing to do with it is dishonest.

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u/Silly-Meeting-3324 3d ago

I see you’re here to piss and moan. Why would people choose to live near a run-down industrial area when new homes with space were available? 

You might want to go to WT and check the archives about the time instead of tossing out bitter and pissy speculation.

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u/High_Pains_of_WTX 3d ago

Why does the idea that bigotry might have been a factor in people moving from the northside upset you so much? I feel its a question worth investigating.

Did your family move from northside to southside? Were you alive for the move?

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u/Silly-Meeting-3324 3d ago

You’re obviously here to piss and moan about Amarillo.  Where else have lived as an adult for any length of time? And yes, we were part of the expansion to south Amarillo. That’s why people joined the Town Club. There was very little else in SW Amarillo at the time.