Special thanks to the communities of and around Amarillo for allow- The Dynamite Day Trip can be viewed

e viewed during daytime hours throughout

ing and accepting, or not, the seemingly inane, but positively alluring the year. In the winter be prepared for dry, biting winds, and, more than
creations of Stanley Marsh and his cohorts. Also, a special thanks to the likely, snowfall. During the summer be ready to endure hot, dusty winds
young “punks” and rebels of Amarillo who contributed to the Dynamite along with intense sunshine. With the exception of the gas it takes to
Museum and brought some excitement to the town, especially to Brian drive to these monuments there is no cost.
Deneke who will forever be remembered. To the Ant Farm thanks are due
for their collaborative effort with Stanley Marsh 3 in creating the ever-
changing Cadillac Ranch. And to Stanley Marsh 3 for spending his money,
making his mark, and forcing us to ask “why?”.
DYNAMITE daytrip
Amarillo, the city that beef built, is the 14th largest city in the state of and the nearby Pantex Army
Texas and the county seat of Potter County. Amarillo’s name probably Ordnance Plant, which produced
derives from yellow wildflowers that were plentiful during the spring and bombs and ammunition. After the
summer, but anyone gazing across the plains in or around Amarillo is end of the war, both of the facilities
likely to believe the name was inspired by the reflection of the sun on the were closed. The Pantex Plant was
short, seemingly dead grass of the plains. (Amarillo is the Spanish word reopened in 1950 and produced
for the color yellow.) In the late 1800s the availability of the railroad and nuclear weapons throughout the
freight service made the town a fast growing cattle marketing center. By Cold War. Now Pantex is the pri-
the late 1890s, Amarillo had emerged as one of the world’s busiest cattle mary disassembler of nuclear weap-
shipping points, and its population grew significantly. In 1893, Amarillo’s ons in the post-Cold War era. Nowadays Amarillo would be just another
population was listed as “500-600 humans and 50,000 cattle. Ranches rivet on the Texas Panhandle were it not for the entrepreneurial antics of

in the area still produce about 25% an eccentric multi-millionaire. Stanley Marsh 3 (not “III”, which he says is
of America’s beef. Discovery of gas pretentious) has breathed a sense of fun and mischief into this town.
in 1918 and oil three years later Now in his late sixties, the outspoken grandson of an early Texan oil mil-
brought oil and gas companies to lionaire is the man behind world-famous Cadillac Ranch. Made up of
the Amarillo area. The United States ten vintage Cadillacs planted nose-down in a row in a field, the Cadillac
government bought the Cliffside Ranch is an image that has
Gas Field with high helium content appeared in countless maga-
in 1927 and the Federal Bureau of Mines began operating the Amarillo zines, advertisements and
Helium Plant two years later. The plant would be the sole producer of guide books. Though Cadillac
commercial helium in the world for a number of years. During the 1930s Ranch is the best-known of
the city was hit by the dust bowl and entered an economic depression. the millionaire’s projects, sev-
The U.S. Routes 60, 87, 287, and 66 merged at Amarillo, making it a major eral other examples exist.
tourist stop with numerous motels, restaurants, and curio shops. World Some years ago Marsh
War II led the establishment of Amarillo Army Air Field in east Amarillo reacted when he saw a street
“One wonderful thing about Amarillo that I really like is that it’s not an unlawful town, it’s not a town where people go around being bandits or
robbers or things like that…it’s a lawless town. We’re a long way from anything else and it’s a town where we happen to believe that the rules
don’t apply to us, and I don’t believe the rules apply to me. I believe that rules should apply to me if I make the rules for myself and if I want
to obey ‘em and if I change my mind then they don’t apply any longer. Most of my fellow citizens agree so we live in a mild state of anarchy
which is the most pleasant way to live and no one seems to give a damn cause we’re way out here in piddly dunk so we do what we want to in
Amarillo. It makes it a nice town to live providing you’re willing to live lawlessly.”

sign which read “Road Ends Ahead”; he immediately had a similar sign
made and erected nearby reading “Road Does Not End”. When told that
he was breaking the law (as the USA is a signatory to an international
agreement on the conformity of road signs), he decided that this kind
of rebellion was fun and had dozens more different signs made and
erected seemingly at random by the side of streets all over Amarillo.
Signs can be found all over town – in suburban streets, on vacant plots
of land and in store car parks.
“make mythology of where you live
to enchant the landscape.”
-local science fiction author don webb
The Cadillac Ranch, located along historic Route 66, was the brainchild
of Stanley Marsh 3, millionaire, artist, philanthropist, and prankster from
Amarillo, Texas. In the 1970s, Marsh collaborated with the art group Ant
Farm to create the Cadillac Ranch. Ant Farm (www.antfarm.org) was a
group of architects who produced experimental works on the “fringe of
architecture” during the period 1968-1978. They documented their work
with video, and were influential early video artists. hammers while the proud previous owner watched. With the cameras
Cadillac Ranch was built in 1974 by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and
Doug Michels, who were part of Ant Farm. It consist of ten “junker”
Cadillac automobiles, representing a number of evolutions of the car
line from 1949 to 1963, half-buried nose-first in the ground, at an angle
corresponding to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The piece is
a statement about the paradoxical simultaneous American fascinations
with both a “sense of place”- and roadside attractions, such as The Ranch
itself – and the mobility and freedom of the automobile.
According to Chip Lord, buying and driving old Cadillacs on the
windswept plains of the Texas Panhandle was, “a white-trash dream come
true.” Every used-car lot in Amarillo and most of the junk yards were
visited. A ’59 Coupe de Ville was purchased for $100 because “it had no
papers.” From Guy Mullins Motors a creampuff ’62 Sedan de Ville, pastel
yellow, four-door hardtop was another purchase. Apparently it ran so
well it was painful to bury. Another find was a silver ’49 fast back, but the
owner wanted $700, a price considered exorbitant (the cars averaged
$200 a piece). Marsh suggested smashing up the front end with sledge
rolling the bewildered owner winced in agony. At the end of two weeks
the necessary ten cars, plus a spare, were procured. When all ten cars
were buried, by a hired and perplexed backhoe operator, Marsh threw
an opening party for the Cadillac Ranch. Two hundred of Amarillo’s
finest citizens were invited. The catered bar served gin and tonics and
guacamole dip. The dust was thick. The artists wore rented western
tuxedos and got very drunk. A lady whose father owned the local
Cadillac dealership brought a bouquet of plastic flowers that were placed
next to the buried cars. A bottle of champagne christened the lead car,
the ‘49, and the Cadillac Ranch was open for business.
Cadillac Ranch was originally located in the middle of Stanley Marsh’s
wheat field about six miles west of Amarillo. In 1997 the installation was
moved two miles to the west, to a cow pasture owned by Marsh along
Interstate 40, in order to place it further from the limits of the growing
city. It is visible from the highway, and though it is located on private
land, visiting it (by driving along a frontage road and entering the pasture
by walking through an unlocked gate) is tacitly encouraged. In addition,
writing graffiti on or otherwise spray-painting the vehicles is also
encouraged, and the vehicles, which have long since lost their original
colors, are wildly decorated. Marsh explains the bashing, smashing and
graffiti-ing public response quite simply: “Americans know how to treat
their monuments.” The cars are periodically repainted various colors to
provide a fresh canvas for future visitors.
“I like to talk about it, I’m proud of it. It’s fun because you don’t know what people are going to say. A lot of people like to shoot footage of road
trips, and they come out to the Cadillac Ranch. I like to go out and see them and get their reaction. The reason for its popularity is a complete
mystery to me. One thing though, it never takes a bad picture. It’s very gratifying that people react to it the way they do. They come to see it
because it’s mysterious to them. It’s not an official place. There are no signs telling you you’re five or two miles from the Cadillac Ranch. There is
no admission. We’re not trying to sell anything.” – Stanley Marsh 3
“My life and your life is boring and hum-drum, and we wake up every morning that’s just the same as it was yesterday. And it’s only through
art and invention that we re-invent ourselves every morning that we look in the mirror, that we part our hair new, that we shine up our teeth,
that we smile and we say it’s new world little man and I’m gonna go out and have a great affair today. That’s what art is. I’m building a system
of unanticipated rewards and that system of anticipated rewards does not go in museums and are not to be seen by the public when they know
they’re seeing them. They are to come as surprises. The Cadillac Ranch is to come as a surprise to people who are hitchhiking or bicycling or
driving across the country. I hate art that’s in museum because a museum programs you to like it or not like it...”
“The signs are crack pot...
if you think about it, the only art left that you’re gonna have a first impression of and not have to see a picture of it on television or in the
museum is art that you see in time and space and you have to be there and alive and moving at that time to see it…”
Stanley Marsh 3 has not stopped contributing to public art after young artists who come up with the sign
bestowing his beloved Cadillac Ranch on the Texas Panhandle. Most content. These artists pulled ideas from
Amarillo residents are familiar also with his mock traffic signs place books, television, and their own
throughout the city by Marsh himself and a group of young artists. imaginations. The signs carry
Marsh’s ranch was the site of the first sign – “Road Does Not End.” Another everything from pictures of
early sign was a picture of Marilyn Monroe; it is appropriately placed on dueling pigs to dramatic
Monroe Street. Now more than 5,000 quirky signs decorate Amarillo. passages by Shakespeare.
These signs bear such messages as, “Lubbock Is A Greasy Spoon”, “Art Is Of course, Marsh still
Nature Made By Man”, and collectively make up the Dynamite Museum, distributes his unusual signs
known informally as “the only museum in the world without four walls.” to Amarillo residents. Just call
The Dynamite Museum’s primary activity involves sneaking diamond- his office in downtown Amarillo’s
shaped road signs in Amarillo neighborhoods, setting them in cement Bank One building and he will be glad
and leaving them for citizens to find. Signs are painted by a group of to install one for you free of charge.
...Recently a group of art rebels in Amarillo who I have been in touch with known as the Dynamite Museum have been putting up signs, signs on
lonely roads, signs in front yards, signs on other people’s property. They mean nothing, they have no significance, and they are not important.
And that’s why they’re the most important thing we have going for us in any kind of visual impact communication that you could get from a
car. If you think about it, the only art left that you’re gonna have a first impression of and not have to see a picture of it on television or in the
museum is art that you see in time and space and you have to be there and alive and moving at that time to see it. It’s like a happening and if
you’re driving in a car and you see a sign for the first time that is like seeing something for real.”
Beyond Cadillac Ranch and Dynamite Museum, Marsh’s public art vision The marker reads:
extends south, to the junction of I-27 and Sundown Lane, where a
sculpture of a pair of disembodied legs greets passersby. The legs are In 1819 while on their horseback trek over the great plains of New
supposed remains of a giant statue called “Ozymandias”. Looking up from Spain, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft (author
the bottom there is a pedestal complete with a spoof historical marker of “Frankenstein”), came across these ruins. Here Shelley penned these
explaining how a wonder of the ancient world. immortal lines:
“Ozymandias.” I met a traveler from an antique land who said: ‘Two vast and
trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert, near them, on the sand, half sunk, a
shattered visage lies, whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command,
tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamped on these
lifeless things, the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the
pedestal these words appear – “my name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my
works, ye mighty, and despair.’” Nothing beside remains round the decay of that
colossal wreck, boundles. (1819)
The visage (or face) was damaged by students from Lubbock after losing
to Amarillo in a competition. A stone cast of it will be replaced when it is
ready. The original is on display now in the Amarillo Museum of Natural
History. Souvenir hunters have scrapped off the bottom of the pedestal, but
archaeologists have determined it was as Shelley described it.
There is also a “Floating Mesa” located about 8 miles northwest of Amarillo While many are amused by the creations of Stanley Marsh 3, not every
via Tascosa Road. A white narrow band constructed from hundreds of Amarillo resident finds them in good taste. Those disgusted by their
sheets of plywood give the impression, if the light is right, that the top of presence have described them as eyesores with little or no artistic value.
the summit is floating. In response, Marsh was once quoted as saying,
“Art is legalized form of insanity and I do it very well.”
Photographic Acknowledgements:

Ashley Hatch
Catherine Lindsey
Patty Fatsacks
Steven Schroeder
Amarillo Globe News
Ant Farm