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Texas Trivia & Tidbits - Page 12

Looking for Texas trivia? Try our list Texas little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

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In 1971, graduate student Douglas Lawson discovered fossils of the largest flying creature ever discovered—the Quetzalcoatlus northropii—in Big Bend National Park, located south of Marathon (pop. 455). The dinosaur was a flying reptile known as a pterodactyl, which lived about 65 million years ago and boasted a wingspan of 36 to 39 feet. It was named for the Aztec feathered snake god known as Quetzalcoatl.
first appeared: 5/23/2004
Legendary sports car builder Carroll Shelby, born in Leesburg, created the original Cobra Roadster in 1962. Able to reach speeds of 60 mph in 3.9 seconds, it was the fastest production car made at the time.
first appeared: 5/23/2004
Built in 1993, the Salt Palace in Grand Saline (pop. 3,028) is reported to be North America’s only building constructed out of salt. Grand Saline is home to one of the nation’s largest salt mining operations, which sits atop a salt dome that—at about 1.5 miles wide and 16,000 feet thick—contains enough salt to supply the world for some 20,000 years.
first appeared: 5/16/2004
The bronze monument on the courthouse lawn in Bandera (pop. 957) celebrates Bandera County’s “Cowboy Capital of the World” title, which originated after the Civil War when the region was a staging area for the great cattle drives up the Western Trail. When ranching became difficult in the 1930s, area ranches began taking in guests: the county still is home to many dude ranches.
first appeared: 5/9/2004
NASCAR driver Bobby Labonte began driving competitively at age 5 in quarter midgets—small, open-wheeled racecars with low-horsepower motors—around his hometown of Corpus Christi. He won NASCAR’s Winston Cup series championship in 2000.
first appeared: 5/9/2004
Known as “The Turtle Lady,” the late Ila Loetscher founded Sea Turtle Inc. in 1977 on South Padre Island (pop. 2,422) to save and rehabilitate sea turtles, particularly the endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle. Loetscher also was Iowa’s first licensed woman pilot, and in 1929 was a founding member of The Ninety-Nines, a women’s pilot group established by Amelia Earhart.
first appeared: 5/2/2004
In January, racecar drivers A.J. Foyt of Houston and Johnny Rutherford of Fort Worth became the first inductees into the Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame near Fort Worth.
first appeared: 5/2/2004
Big Tex, the cowboy statue that welcomes visitors to the State Fair of Texas at Fair Park in Dallas, wears the world’s largest pair of jeans—size 276. He stands 52 feet tall with a 23-foot waist, and also wears a 75-gallon cowboy hat and size 70 boots. Big Tex first appeared at the fair in 1952.
first appeared: 4/25/2004
Built from 1936 to 1937 for the Texas Centennial Exposition, the Texas Centennial Buildings at Fair Park earned National Historic Landmark status in 1986 as one of the nation’s largest collections of art deco exposition buildings.
first appeared: 4/25/2004
Texas Motor Speedway near Fort Worth held its inaugural NASCAR race April 6, 1997. On the race’s first lap, 13 cars crashed.
first appeared: 4/25/2004
The Concho River pearls, produced by mussels in the rivers and lakes around San Angelo, are some of the rarest pearls in the world. The pearls have an unusual color, generally pink or purple in hue.
first appeared: 4/18/2004
Longhorn cattle played such an important role in the economy of the state that it keeps its own herd. The Texas Official State Longhorn Herd, totaling about 100 head, is maintained at several state parks.
first appeared: 4/11/2004
The concept of the convenience store was born in Dallas, when the Southland Ice Co. began selling milk, eggs, and bread at its retail stores in 1927. Later the company changed its name to 7-Eleven Inc., which now has more than 25,000 stores worldwide and is one of the nation’s largest independent gasoline retailers.
first appeared: 4/4/2004
Some species of armadillo, a mammal common in the state, can roll their bodies into a ball completely protected by their bony plates. The animal also is adept at burrowing, and will bury itself underground before a predator can reach it.
first appeared: 3/28/2004
Dolphin Bay at the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi opened in 2003 as a protected habitat for dolphins that cannot survive in the wild. The exhibit covers 30,800 square feet and was built with donations. Two dolphins, Kimo and Sundance, are the aquarium’s star attractions.
first appeared: 3/21/2004
Singer-songwriter Buddy Holly was born in Lubbock in 1936. He died at age 22 in an airplane crash in Iowa while on tour.
first appeared: 3/21/2004
About 75 percent of the world’s Snickers bars are made at the M&M/Mars plant in Waco.
first appeared: 3/14/2004
Stephen F. Austin, not Sam Houston, is considered the “Father of Texas.” Among his many accomplishments, Austin (1793-1836) established the first Anglo-American colony in Texas. We erroneously identified Houston as the “Father of Texas” in a previous edition.
first appeared: 3/14/2004
The official state mammal, the armadillo, once lived as far north as the Ohio Valley. These became extinct 11,000 years ago in what is now the United States, and it wasn’t until about 1850 that the animal re-established itself north of the Rio Grande. More than 30 million armadillos now inhabit the warm-weather states where they can dine on insects all year.
first appeared: 3/7/2004
Singing cowboy Gene Autry was born in Tioga (pop. 697) in 1907. He was a telegraph operator before entering radio, and wrote and recorded his first hit, That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine, in 1931.
first appeared: 3/7/2004
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