McLean Commercial Historic District

The McLean Commercial Historic District is located in the Panhandle town of McLean, Texas (2005 pop. est 292). The district is primarily commercial in character and is located in the town's historic business area along what was formerly U.S. Route 66. The McLean Commercial Historic District is nominated to the National Register under Criterion A in the area of Commerce as the historic commercial area that served a regional population as well as interstate travelers along Route 66, with a wide variety of grocery stores, hardware stores, gas stations, and automobile repair shops. The district is also eligible under Criterion C in the area of Architecture as an intact collection of early to mid-20th-century commercial buildings, typical of those found throughout the midwest United States.

The district contains forty-four buildings, of which forty (91%) are identified as contributing to the significance of the district. These buildings reflect vernacular commercial building forms, as well as several examples of gas station designs of the mid-20th century, as discussed in the MPS document Route 66 in Texas. The district also contains the Avalon Theater which is a notable example of the Art Deco style of the 1930s. Of all the small towns along U.S. Route 66 in Texas, the McLean Commercial Historic District contains the largest and most notable collection of buildings associated with this highway.

The town of McLean, Texas emerged along the line of the newly completed Rock Island Railroad in the Texas Panhandle during the early twentieth century. In 1901, the site was little more than a cattle loading spot along the tracks where the railroad company had dug a water well and constructed a switch and section house. In November of 1902, local rancher Alfred Rowe donated 640 acres of his land near the switching station for the development of a town. The town was named McLean in honor of Texas legislator and Railroad Commissioner W.P. McLean, and it soon developed as a center of agricultural production, with watermelons, swine, and cattle being the principal products.

Over the next few years, McLean grew into a substantial railroad town and by 1909 it contained two banks, two stables, two wagon yards, a lumber yard, a post office, grocery stores, a furniture store, and a drug store. Residents obtained their water supply from a well in the middle of Main Street and the large windmill which pumped the water was a community landmark for many years. The first building constructed on the townsite was a hotel constructed by J.R. and Mary Hindman. The Hindmans came to Gray County in 1902 and J.R. worked for the railroad while Mary cooked for local ranch hands. They purchased property along the railroad tracks in McLean for $400 and in 1904 began to operate a hotel there. A few years later they erected a two-story hotel on the site. In 1914, Fred O'Dell built a second hotel in McLean at 101-103 N. Main Street. Known as the O'Dell Hotel, the two-story, brick structure contained sixteen bedrooms and two bathrooms and featured upholstered chairs in the lobby and oak tables in the dining room. In 1916, the Hindmans purchased O'Dell's hotel and renamed it the Hindman Hotel. The establishment became well-known throughout the region for its hospitality and good food. The Hindmans later added an additional fourteen rooms at the rear of the hotel, which remains on North Main Street as the oldest building in the McLean Commercial Historic District."

When McLean incorporated in 1909 it was the first incorporated community in Gray County and the largest town as well with a population of 663. The number of McLean residents had risen to 741 by 1920, but by this time the county seat of Pampa to the north had surpassed McLean in population.' During the 1920s, the oil industry emerged as a new business source in the region, and McLean profited by becoming a major shipping point for gas and oil in addition to livestock and agricultural products. The oil boom stimulated new construction in the town and most of the downtown area's frame commercial buildings were replaced by new one-story brick buildings during this decade.

In 1926, U.S. Route 66 was selected to follow the alignment of State Highway 75 through the Texas Panhandle. This highway was along the general alignment of what was once the Postal Highway that extended through New Mexico and Texas to Oklahoma City. U.S. Route 66 followed this alignment in an east-west direction through the Panhandle passing through a series of small towns such as Shamrock, Alanreed, Conway, Vega, and Glenrio in addition to McLean. Centrally located Amarillo, approximately sixty-four miles west of McLean, was the only city through which U.S. Highway 66 was aligned in Texas.

One of the last portions of the state to be settled, the Texas Panhandle was a sparsely populated and arid region in the 1920s. Roads in this section of Texas were little more than dirt paths in the early twentieth century. The main east-west route was very crooked and had sharp turns that followed section lines. As agriculture boomed and the oil industry emerged during the 1920s, the demand for improved roadways increased substantially. The oil industry generated substantial growth in Amarillo, which became a commercial and corporate center of the region and led to significant highway development in the panhandle. An overview of the region written in 1940 for the Works Projects Administration, describes the area as follows:

US 66 slices through the center of the Texas Panhandle, east to west, crossing the High Plains through a region once occupied by great herds of buffalo and bands of Kiowas and Comanches...Today this level expanse is rich, producing oil, gas, wheat, small grain crops, and fine Herefords. At intervals, the countryside is covered with a pall of smoke from factories and refineries... The population of the region is predominantly native-born white. Since settlement is comparatively new, any 25-year resident is considered an old-timer.

U.S. Route 66 was the primary road in the highway development through the Texas Panhandle in the early twentieth century. Its alignment through Texas included First Street in McLean. As it did in several small towns throughout the country, the road helped to boost McLean's economy by bringing thousands of travelers to the town. Many businesses sprang up along the route to take advantage of the passing motorists including gas stations, motels, and cafés. This prosperity led to a doubling of the town's population during the 1920s and by 1930 McLean contained 1,521 residents.