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Texas Trivia & Tidbits - Page 4

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

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—To sell Texans on newfangled barbed wire in 1876, John Warne “Bet-A-Million” Gates rented Military Plaza in San Antonio, built a barbed-wire corral and filled it with longhorns. Gates later owned his own barbed-wire factories, and invested in railroads and oil, specifically Spindletop, a Texas oil field that made Gates millions in Texaco stocks. He earned his nickname from his indulgence in gambling and his reputation for placing high bets.
first appeared: 3/9/2008
Kilgore (pop. 11,301) College’s Rangerettes were the first precision dance team in the nation to perform on a football field. Formed in 1940 to keep football fans in their seats during halftime, the team has danced its way to fame with performances across the world.
first appeared: 3/9/2008
—Luxury department store Neiman Marcus, founded in 1907 in Dallas, is famous for its Christmas catalog featuring “fantasy gifts,” which last year included a $1.44 million submarine, a $73,000 cell phone with 7.2 carats of white and pink diamonds, and a private classical concert performed by the Kirov Orchestra and hosted by Regis Philbin, to the tune of $1.59 million.
first appeared: 2/24/2008
Bangin’ Bertha, a bell mounted on a trailer, is wheeled onto the football field and basketball court for games at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. The bell is rung by the school’s Saddle Tramps, a booster club, to celebrate Red Raiders victories. It was designed in 1959 by Saddle Tramp Joe Winegar and donated to the school by the Santa Fe Railroad.
first appeared: 2/24/2008
—The world’s largest brick, named Baby Clay, was made by Acme Brick in Denton and weighs more than 6,000 pounds and is 116 inches long. The company used clay from each of its 23 plants to make the brick in celebration of its 116th anniversary last year. It took more than a year for Baby Clay to dry.
first appeared: 2/10/2008
Although he started his musical career as an opera singer in the early 1900s, Vernon Dalhart was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1981 for his many recordings of hillbilly songs, including the 1924 release of “The Prisoner’s Song” and “The Wreck of the Old ’97,” which together became country music’s first million-selling record. Dalhart recorded under more than 100 pseudonyms, but was born Marion Try Slaughter in 1883 in Jefferson (pop. 2,024).
first appeared: 2/10/2008
—When Bryon Woods won $49 million in the Texas Lottery in 2003, he and his wife, Barbara, used some of the money to restore and reopen the Tee Pee Motel in Wharton (pop. 9,237). The quirky landmark, 10 teepee-shaped stucco units, was built in 1942 and reopened last year. Melinda Gates, co-philanthropist with her husband, Bill, Microsoft Corp. chairman and the richest man in the United States, was born in 1964 in Dallas. In 2000, the couple formed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has given billions of dollars to charitable causes.
first appeared: 1/27/2008
—Windmills of all sizes whirl at the 28-acre American Wind Power Center in Lubbock. The museum tells the story of how the windmill helped settlement of the West by providing access to underground water, and boasts more than 100 windmills in its indoor and outdoor collection.
first appeared: 1/13/2008
—Wildlife officials counted a record 128 nests of Kemp’s ridley sea turtles on Texas beaches last summer, mostly in the Corpus Christi area, with 81 nests found on North Padre Island and four on Mustang Island. The turtles have been on the nation’s list of endangered species since 1970, when they were on the verge of extinction because of egg hunters and accidental drowning from shrimp nets.
first appeared: 12/30/2007
The National Amber Alert was started in 1996 after the disappearance and murder of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman in Arlington. Amber’s name was used as an acronym for the alert, which is known as “America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response.” The alert is a joint venture of broadcasters and law enforcement to quickly spread information about child abductions.
first appeared: 12/30/2007
––One of the most prestigious piano competitions in the world, the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was started in 1962 in Fort Worth by music teachers, benefactors and city leaders. The event was named to celebrate Cliburn’s sensational 1958 victory in the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow. A fiberglass sculpture of alligators basking in the sun greets passersby at the San Jacinto Plaza in downtown El Paso. The 1993 sculpture by artist Luis Jimenez harks back to the days when alligators made the plaza their home. The alligators were booted out of the plaza in the 1960s.
first appeared: 12/2/2007
—Created by Texas educator and rodeo contestant Claude Mullins, the National High School Rodeo Association held its first finals in Halletsville in 1949. The NHSRA has an annual membership of about 12,500 students.
first appeared: 11/18/2007
Jamie Langridge, 30, of Odessa threw “paper” to cover “rock” and won the 2007 USA Rock Paper Scissors League championship in Las Vegas in May. Langridge, who outlasted more than 300 competitors, pocketed the $50,000 prize.
first appeared: 11/18/2007
—Lady Bird Johnson earned her nickname when a nursemaid proclaimed her to be “purty as a lady bird,” a reference to a ladybird beetle or ladybug. The former first lady was born Claudia Alta Taylor in Karnack near Marshall (pop. 23,935) and married Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president, in 1934. She died in July at her home in Austin at age 94.
first appeared: 11/4/2007
Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan became the first baseball player to reach the $1 million salary mark when he signed with the Houston Astros in 1980. Ryan, who retired after the 1993 season, was born in 1947 in Refugio (pop. 2,941) and was raised in Alvin (pop. 21,413).
first appeared: 11/4/2007
—Champion swimmer, humorist and rancher Hondo Crouch paid $30,000 in the early 1970s for 10 acres outside Fredericksburg (pop. 8,911) known as Luckenbach and proclaimed himself mayor. The town later became a music mecca that inspired the 1977 Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson collaboration, “Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love).”
first appeared: 10/21/2007
The Tower of the Americas in San Antonio stands 750 feet high and is one of the tallest observation towers in the United States. Built in 1968 as the theme structure for the HemisFair world’s fair, the tower has a cafe and Texas-themed theater on the ground level, as well as an observation deck, lounge and revolving restaurant at the top.
first appeared: 10/21/2007
—Golf prodigy Judy Rankin, who lives in Midland, won the Missouri Amateur at age 14, turned pro at 17, and won 26 times on the LPGA Tour, becoming the first LPGA player to earn at least $100,000 in one year in 1976. She since has been inducted into the Texas Golf Hall of Fame and the LPGA Hall of Fame.
first appeared: 10/7/2007
—The Museo Alameda, billed as the nation’s largest Latino museum, opened in the historic Market Square district of downtown San Antonio in April. The 39,000-square-foot museum, affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, combines art, history, cultural education and live performance to tell the story of the Latino experience in America.
first appeared: 9/30/2007
Paint Rock (pop. 320) is named for the Indian pictographs painted on limestone cliffs on Kay and Fred Campbell’s ranch on the north edge of town. More than 1,000 pictographs, some several hundred years old, stretch for more than a half-mile along the layered cliff face. The paintings depict birds, mammals, people, suns, stars, crops, weapons and other identifiable objects, as well as abstract geometric symbols.
first appeared: 9/30/2007
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