Will Rogers' father and uncle were boyhood friends of Sam Houston. Their half sister, Will Rogers' aunt, was also Sam Houston's Indian wife.
Davy Crockett had another distinction in Texas, besides dying at the Alamo. He also served three terms as a congressman in Tennessee. Before leaving he informed his peers, "You'all can go to hell. I am going to Texas."
General Sam Houston carried two books with him throughout his campaign for Texas liberty, "Gulliver's Travels" and "Caesar's War Commentaries".
The first word spoken from the moon on July 20, 1969 was "Houston".
The only place in the world where they make Dr. Pepper according to the original formula is in Dublin,Texas
The Oldest Dr Pepper Bottling Plant in the World!
A True Texas Original!
. Dr Pepper was invented in Waco in 1885. There is no period after the Dr in Dr Pepper.
According to the <Texas Department of Transportation, one person is killed annually painting stripes on the state's highways and roads.
There are more than 70,000 miles of highways in Texas
Texas's official dance is the square dance.
The official dish of Texas< is chili.
Rodeo is the official state sport of Texas, though High School Football is more popular.
The world's first rodeo was held in Pecos on July 4, 1883.
In the mid 1980s, the employee cafeteria at Motorola in Austin had to stop serving food that contained poppy seeds because people showed false positives for opium when they were drug tested. Since then, the company reintroduced poppy seeds, and added Valium and several anti-depressants to a list of things not to bother testing for.
Early Spanish missionaries in Texas hoped to encourage the spread of European values by offering flannel underwear to Native Americans.
People who moved to Lockhart, Texas in the 1950s are still considered by natives of the town to be newcomers.
In 1964, Austin writer John Morthland became the first person in America to interview the Rolling Stones. John, who was a high school junior in San Bernardino, California, interviewed the band when they arrived for the maiden U.S. tour for his school's paper.
There are stalactites and stalagmites in the breezeway at the University of Texas Law School.
For $150 you can become a licensed dead animal hauler in Texas
.The world's largest oatmeal cake was baked and built in Bertram,Texas during Labor Day weekend 1991. The 33-layer cake stood more than 3 feet tall, weighed 333 pounds, and served 3,333 people.
Dallas' corner of Elm and Houston streets has a sordid history. The building completed there in November 1898 was struck by lightning and burned to the ground in May 1901. By the fall of 1901 it was rebuilt. In that same building 62 years later, Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot President Kennedy from the sixth floor.
The first suspension bridge in the United States was the Waco Bridge. Built in 1870 and still in use today as a pedestrian crossing of the Brazos River.
Seventy-five percent of the world's Snickers bars are made in Waco at the M&M/Mars plant
Waco is one of only two cities in the U.S. that has a radio station whose call letters spell out the name of the city.
Texas boasts the largest of all the state capitol buildings, constructed of 15,000 carloads of pink granite.
Of the nation's ten largest cities, three are in Texas (Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio).
The World’s largest parking lot is located at DFW Airport.
In 1893 Amarillo’s population was listed as "between 500-600 humans and 50,000 head of cattle."
The King Ranch in Texas is bigger than the state of Rhode Island.
The Amarillo airport has the 3rd largest runway in the world and is designated as an alternate landing site for the space shuttle
Billy Bob’s Texas, in Ft Worth, is the world’s largest country-western honky-tonk and includes a 4800-square foot rodeo arena.
Lubbock, Texas is the largest city in the United States that it dry.
Lubbock doesn't have any storm drains.
The nation’s longest, skinniest state park is the Texas State Railroad Park which is over 25 miles long.
The world’s largest collection of beer bottles can be seen at Wurstfest in New Braunfels.
The second largest rock in the nation is Enchanted Rock which has an exposed surface are of 130 square miles, which lies on the border between Gillespie and Llano Counties.
Texas is as large as all of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois combined.
The Dallas/Fort Worth airport is larger than New York City’s Manhattan Island.
It is illegal to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel.
Fifty years ago, you could have been jailed for giving out or discussing information on birth control
In Texas, it's illegal to put graffiti on someone else's cow.
In Houston it is illegal to sell Limburger cheese on Sunday.
There's a Texas law that forbids people from carrying around a fence cutter or a pair of pliers that could cut a fence.
In Texas, it is illegal to curse in front of or indecently expose a corpse.
It is illegal to milk another person's cow.
In Lefors, it is illegal to take more than three swallows of beer at any time while standing.
In Texas, it is still a "hanging offense" to steal cattle.
It is illegal for children to have unusual haircuts in Mesquite, Texas.
You can be legally married by publicly introducing a person as your husband or wife three times
In Texarkana owners of horses may not ride them at night without taillights.
In Port Arthur obnoxious odors may not be emitted while in an elevator.
Texas State representative, Jim Kaster, introduced a bill that all criminals must notify their victims in advance of their crimes and remind them that use of deadly force is authorized.
The Battle of the Alamo, lasting nearly two weeks, ended on March 6, 1836, with the deaths of all its defenders – about 190. The Mexican army numbered 4,000-5,000 during its final charge.
The Battle of the Alamo - Alamo History,
Alamo Heroes and the Alamo Today
The last battle of the Civil War was fought on May 12-13, 1865 at Palmito ranch, Texas. It was a Confederate victory.
According to newspaper accounts, the first powered airplane was flown in Texas nearly forty years before the Wright Brothers version in 1903. Inventor-pilot Jacob Brodbeck powered the plane with coil springs and reached treetop heights before crashing into a henhouse killing several chickens and scaring many children in 1865.
In Odessa, Texas the star of David and the peace symbol are forbidden by the city's dress code because they are considered to be Satanic symbols.
The 1850 census recorded 213,000 people in Texas. In 1900, there were three million people, and by 1990, the population was more than 16 million. Today, approximately 18 million people live in Texas, only slightly outnumbering its 15 million cattle.
Three existing Indian reservations are in the state: the Alabama-Coushatta Reservation, located between Livingston and Woodville in East Texas; Ysleta del Sur Pueblo (Tigua Indian Reservation) near El Paso; and the Kickapoo Reservation in Maverick County. Most Native Americans in Texas live outside reservations. Texas' Indian population ranks sixth among the states, with approximately 65,000.
Texas has approximately 11,500 historical markers. Marker subjects include historic courthouses, frontier forts, Spanish missions and presidios, cemeteries, churches, individuals, historic homes and buildings and Texas independence battle sites. More than 700 local history museums, 40,000 recorded archeological sites and more than 2,000 sites in Texas are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
According to one report, more popcorn is sold in Dallas, Texas than anywhere in the U.S. (The average American eats 42 quarts of popcorn a year.)
The smallest Catholic church in the world still in operation claims to be in Warrenton, Texas. Measuring 12 feet by 15 feet, the church seats 15 and is only open once a year.
Forty percent of the farm-grown catfish in the United States is consumed by Texans.
To be elected in the state of Texas, one must believe in a supreme being.
In Texas, pharmacists can't be registered members of the Communist Party.
Supposedly, there is a ghost on the fifth floor of Austin's Driskill Hotel.
In the South Texas Brush Country, the ghost of a Headless Horseman, referred to as El Muerto, is said to continue to roam.
Texas has 254 counties. Rockwall County (147 square miles) is the smallest, and Brewster County (6,204 square miles) is the largest. Only one, Angelina County, is named for a woman.
You can buy chicken fried steak at one Chinese restaurant in Fort Stockton, Texas.
On September 8–9, 1900, an estimated 8,000 people were killed in the disastrous Galveston hurricane and flood.
The all American meal, the hamburger, was created in Athens, Texas.
Texas is the only state to have the flags of six different nations fly over it. They are: Spain, France, Mexico, Republic of Texas, Confederate States and the United States.
Texas was an independent nation from 1836 to 1845.
When Texas was annexed in 1845 it retained the right to fly its flag at the same height as the national flag.
In 1921 a hurricane deposited twenty-three inches of rain on Texas in one day.
Texas today is also home for about 2.5 million deer and 200,000 alligators.
The Flagship Hotel on Seawall Boulevard in Galveston is the only hotel in North America built entirely over the water.
The written test for University of Texas at Austin campus police in the 1960s asked applicants the shape of their excrement to test their ability to be observant.
The entire Encyclopedia Britannica is banned in Texas because it contains a recipe for making beer that can be used at home.
A coastal live oak located near Fulton is the oldest tree in the state. The tree has an estimated age of more than 1,500 years.
To combat the deadly killer bee, the Harris County Fire Department has 11 trucks equipped with soapy water sprayers that do nothing but respond to killer bee calls. Currently, the Austin Fire Department will only deal with emergency situations involving killer bee attacks in progress.
The oldest human skeleton ever found in the Western Hemisphere was discovered in 1953 near Midland, Texas . It was first believed that the skeleton, the remains of a 30-year-old woman, was 10,000 years old. However, the latest estimates are that it is much older
During the period of July 24-26, 1979, the Tropical Storm Claudette brought 45 inches of rain to an area near Alvin, Texas, contributing to more than $600 million in damages. Claudette produced the United States 24 hour rainfall record of 43 inches.
El Paso is closer to Needles, California than it is to Dallas.
The Big Texan Steak Ranch Restaurant in Amarillo serves a 4˝ pound steak for free, if you can eat it in an hour.
Franklin Mountains State Park, in El Paso County, is the largest urban park in the nation at over 24,049 acres, covering some 37 square miles, all within the city limits of El Paso.
Texas has a total of 6,300 square miles of inland lakes and streams, second only to Alaska.
Texas has four national forests – Angelina, Davy Crockett, Sabine and Sam Houston; and two national parks – Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains.
There were more than 70 World War II prisoner-of-war camps in Texas, more than any other state. Primarily the camps housed German solders, but also held Italian and Japanese prisoners.
Texas has 90 mountains a mile or more high, with Guadalupe Peak in West Texas at 8,751 feet being the tallest.
According to archaeologists, the site of one of the oldest areas of human habitation in North America is near Lubbock, Texas. Located in the northeastern part of Lubbock County, the site dates back to the Clovis period some 12,000 years ago.
The Buckhorn Saloon and Museum in San Antonio trots out thousands of dead animals and dead animal parts for your enjoyment. The museum features a 4,000-antler chandelier and a chair made for Teddy Roosevelt out of 62 pair of buffalo horns. This massive assemblage of Texas-style stuff also includes a dead baby giraffe, a bottle cap collection, portraits made from rattlesnake rattlers and a large Indian chief silhouette "drawn" in sheet metal with a .22 caliber rifle.
