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HornsofBevo

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Everything posted by HornsofBevo

  1. 34. The Dallas State Fair Park is home to the largest Ferris wheel (the Texas Star) in the Western Hemisphere.
  2. 33. A $60 million treasure of gold plundered by Coronado is believed to be buried on an 80-acre pasture at the Sems Ranch near Clyde, Texas.
  3. 32. The largest county in Texas is Brewster. It measures 6,193 square miles, which is roughly the size of Connecticut. Delaware could fit inside Brewster three times.
  4. 31. Approximately 90% of the world’s recoverable helium is located in the ground under Amarillo, Texas.
  5. 30. Each year Amarillo hosts the World’s Largest Calf Fry Cook-Off. “Calf fries” are bull testicles.
  6. 29. The “father” of Texas is Stephen Fuller Austin (1793-1836). He and his father helped move 300 American families (“The Old 300”) to Texas.
  7. 28. The Texas state capitol building—completed on May 16, 1888—is the largest capitol of all state capitols in the nation in terms of gross square footage.
  8. 27. Austin is home to the largest urban bat colony in North America. Over 1.5 million bats roost beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge over Lady Bird Lake and eat between 10,000- 30,000 lbs. of insects a night. The largest known bat colony in North America is also located in Texas in Bracken Cave. Over 20 million bats live in the cave, which is more bats than there are people living in Mumbai, India—one of the world's largest human cities.
  9. 26. Texas was the 28th state in the U.S. and was admitted into the Union on December 29, 1845. All other states except Texas entered the United States by territorial annexation. Only Texas entered by treaty.
  10. 25. The Texas flag is called the “Lone Star Flag” and has three colors: red to represent courage, white to represent liberty, and blue to represent loyalty. It was adopted in 1845 when Texas became a state. The large white star was first used on Texas flags in the 1830s during the battles between Texas and Mexico.
  11. 24. Davy Crockett, who died at the Alamo, once told his Tennessee peers in Congress “Ya’ll can go to hell. I am going to Texas.”
  12. 23. Camels were imported into Texas twice in the 1850s by the U.S. War Department in the belief that they would be handy animals to use during the Indian Wars.
  13. 22. In 1969, Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong called Houston, Texas, from the moon. The first word spoken on the moon in 1969 was “Houston.”
  14. 21. The most popular snack foods in Texas are Frito pie (a bag of Fritos mixed with chili, onions, and cheese eaten straight from the bag), peanuts in Dr Pepper, beef jerky, jalapenos, and corn dogs.
  15. 20. The famous battle cry “Remember the Alamo!” is often attributed to Sam Houston but was actually coined by Texas general Sidney Sherman (1805-1873).
  16. 19. The letters “G.T.T.” were 19th-century short hand for “Gone to Texas,” a quick way for people to let their families know that they had left for greener grass. Eventually, so many people headed to Texas to escape the law that “G.T.T.” came to mean “on the lam.”
  17. 18. Texas was an independent nation from 1836 to 1845. When it was annexed in 1845, it retained the right to fly its flag at the same height as the national flag.
  18. 17. The deadliest natural disaster in the U.S. was the Galveston hurricane of 1900, which killed between 8,000-12,000 people.
  19. 16. Texas experiences the most tornadoes in the United States, with an average of 139 per year.
  20. 15. If Texas were a country, it would rank as the world’s 7th largest producer of greenhouse gases.
  21. 14. The phrase “Six Flags over Texas” refers to the six countries that ruled over Texas territory.
  22. 13. It is said that only Texans would have fought the Battle of the Alamo, where Mexican troops far outnumbered the 187 men in the mission-turned-fort. All 187 men died.
  23. 12. Texas’ nickname is the “Lone Star State” as a reminder of its struggle for independence from Mexico and to represent Texas as an independent republic.
  24. 11. The largest city in Texas is Houston. It is also the fourth largest city in the United States .
  25. 10. The city of Slaughter, Texas, has never had a homicide.
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