Texas Trivia & Tidbits - Page 9

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

For his 1998 book titled Pigskin Pulpit: A Social History of Texas High School Football Coaches, author Ty Cashion interviewed more than 80 coaches to weave together his analysis of how these men shaped generations of young Texans. Cashion is a history professor at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville (pop. 35,078).

first appeared: 11/20/2005

Featuring woodwork of rosewood, satinwood and white mahogany, the house known as Bishop’s Palace, in Galveston (pop. 57,247), was built between 1886 and 1893 for U.S. Congressman Walter Gresham at a cost of $250,000. One of the few structures in town that survived the 1900 hurricane, the house gained its name from its ownership by the Catholic Diocese between the 1920s and 1950s. The structure now is a historic house museum.

first appeared: 11/6/2005

Born in 1868, Scott Joplin grew up in Texarkana (pop. 34,782). Learning to play the piano at an early age, he worked as an itinerant musician in Midwestern saloons. In 1899, he became one of the first African-Americans to have his musical works published. The bouncing bass line of his music, along with the syncopated melody, was called "ragged time," later shortened to "ragtime."

first appeared: 11/6/2005

Millionaire artist and philanthropist Stanley Marsh 3 sponsored the public art installation known as Cadillac Ranch, in which 10 vintage Cadillacs are buried nose down in a field along U.S. Highway 66 west of Amarillo. Marsh also is known for the road signs he’s posted randomly around town, sporting quirky sayings such as "Road does not end," and humorous, sometimes puzzling, drawings. Marsh intentionally uses the Arabic numeral 3 after his name, rather than the Roman numeral III, which he views as pretentious.

first appeared: 10/23/2005

More than 1.4 million people have visited the John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science in Houston since it opened in 1996. The museum’s Amazing Body Pavilion provides a walking tour through the human body, including a 10-foot-tall brain, a 27-foot intestine and a walk-in eyeball.

first appeared: 10/9/2005

Sculptor Bonnie MacLeary (1890-1971), a native of San Antonio, fashioned her first work from clay on the banks of the San Antonio River at the age of 6. Her work titled Aspiration was donated to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1924.

first appeared: 10/9/2005

Sanderson (pop. 861), located 20 miles north of the U.S. border with Mexico, was designated the "Cactus Capital of Texas" by the state Legislature in 1999 for its abundance and variety of desert-dwelling plants such as the claret-cup, horse-crippler, fish-hook barrel and prickly pear. Established as a railroad town in 1881, today Sanderson is the seat of government for Terrell County.

first appeared: 9/25/2005

The state motto "Friendship" was adopted by the state Legislature in 1930 and is reported to originate with the name of the state. "Tejas" or "teysha" was used by the American Indians there—including the Caddo Indians—and was picked up by Spanish explorers in the 17th century. The word translates to various expressions, including "friends," "allies" and "hello, friend."

first appeared: 9/18/2005

Opened in 1952, the Tyler Municipal Rose Garden in Tyler—also known as the City of Roses—is one of the nation’s largest rose gardens, covering 14 acres with about 40,000 bushes, representing 500 varieties, that bloom between May and November. The garden is one of 24 national test gardens where new rose varieties are introduced each year.

first appeared: 9/18/2005

Known for the intricate gingerbread details on many of its turn-of-the-century buildings, Waxahachie (pop. 21,426) frequently has been used as a movie location. Bonnie and Clyde, co-written by Robert Benton, who was born there in 1932, was filmed in the Ellis County town in 1967, followed by productions of The Trip to Bountiful, Tender Mercies and Places in the Heart, which Benton wrote and directed.

first appeared: 9/11/2005

A golden retriever named Augie set a Guinness World Record for the most tennis balls in a dog’s mouth on July 6, 2003, when he gathered and held onto five regulation-size balls. Owned by a Dallas family, Augie previously won the "Beggin’ Strips Stupid Dog Tricks Contest." His reward was a trip to New York City to attend The Late Show with David Letterman, featuring the segment "Stupid Pet Tricks."

first appeared: 9/11/2005

An "underwater upside-down snowstorm" happens once a year, on the eighth night after the August full moon, in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. First seen in 1990, the phenomenon occurs when corals spawn in a mass release, producing a white glow in the water about 110 miles offshore from Freeport (pop. 12,708). The 42-square-nautical-mile sanctuary was established in 1992.

first appeared: 8/28/2005

Former first lady Lady Bird Johnson and actress Helen Hayes established the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin in 1982 to study and promote the use of native plants. Today, the botanical garden covers 279 acres and displays more than 500 native species.

first appeared: 8/14/2005

The farming community of Zigzag, near Devine (pop. 4,140) in Medina County, got its name from the numerous twists in the road leading to the town.

first appeared: 8/14/2005

Hee Haw star Buck Owens was born in Sherman (pop. 35,082) on Aug. 12, 1929. The son of sharecroppers, Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. moved with his family to Arizona in 1937. Living in poverty had a profound effect on Owens, who began performing at honkytonks in Phoenix and Mesa, Ariz., to earn money and to learn a trade that would not require him to work on a farm. In 1951, he and then-wife Bonnie moved to Bakersfield, Calif., where he joined the local music scene and began driving to Los Angeles to play guitar during Capitol studios recording sessions.

first appeared: 7/31/2005

Andrea Lloyd Curry was inducted into the University of Texas Women’s Athletics Hall of Honor in Austin in 2002. A member of the gold medal-winning U.S. women’s basketball team at the 1988 Olympics, she also was on the undefeated (34-0) University of Texas Longhorns team that won the 1986 NCAA title. She played professionally for the Columbia Quest (ABL) and the Minnesota Lynx (WNBA) before retiring in 2001.

first appeared: 7/17/2005

The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing’s Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth prints 4.5 billion notes each year. During tours of the facility—one of only two such operations in the nation (the other is in Washington, D.C.)—visitors can watch the bills roll off the presses from a quarter-mile-long elevated walkway above the currency production floor.

first appeared: 6/19/2005

The state Legislature declared the Karnes County town of Kenedy (pop. 3,487) the Horned Lizard Capital of Texas in 2001, in recognition of its coexistence with and protection of the largest known population of Phrynosoma cornutum, a federally protected species. The spiky-looking, armor-plated lizard, known as the "horny toad," holds a Guinness World Record for the strangest defense mechanism: it can squirt blood from its eyes when threatened.

first appeared: 6/5/2005

Born in 1958 in Harlingen (pop. 57,564), Rachel McLish won the first U.S. Bodybuilding Championships in 1980 and was named Ms. Olympia twice in the 1980s. She was inducted into Joe Weider’s Bodybuilding Hall of Fame in 1999.

first appeared: 5/22/2005

Incorporated in 1910 with a population of 1,126, Harlingen was known as Six-Shooter Junction in its early days, when its residents consisted mainly of Texas Rangers and Border Patrol personnel. Lawyer and businessman Lon C. Hill founded the town and named it for a community in the Netherlands that inspired his vision of the Arroyo Colorado as a commercial waterway.

first appeared: 5/22/2005

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