24/7 Trauma & Biohazard Cleanup Near East McLean McLean, TX

McLean is a town in southeastern Gray County in the Texas Panhandle, about 74 miles east of Amarillo, and is part of the Pampa micropolitan statistical area.

McLean began in 1901 at a railroad cattle-loading switch, when English rancher Alfred Rowe donated 640 acres of land for a townsite.

McLean's founder, Alfred Rowe, later died in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.

The town was named for Judge William P. McLean, a Texas legislator and member of the Texas Railroad Commission.

McLean incorporated in 1909, becoming the first incorporated community in Gray County, with C. S. Rice as its first mayor.

U.S. Route 66 was built through McLean in 1927, turning it into a busy stop for tourists and a center for oil, livestock, and farm shipping.

Phillips Petroleum chose McLean as the site of its first gasoline station in Texas, and the restored Phillips 66 station still stands on the old Route 66 alignment.

McLean's population peaked at 1,521 in the 1930 census, and by 1940 the town had six churches, 59 businesses, and its own newspaper, the McLean News.

From 1942 to 1945, a prisoner-of-war camp east of McLean held about 3,000 German prisoners.

McLean was the last Route 66 town in Texas to be bypassed by Interstate 40, in 1984, and its population had fallen to 665 by the 2020 census.