Texas Facts
Hat tip to
greymalkin, who once opined about Texas' entrance into the Union.
I got this Texas facts in my work e-mail:
1. Beaumont to El Paso: 742 miles
2. Beaumont to Chicago: 770 miles
3. El Paso is closer to California than to Dallas
4. World's first rodeo was in Pecos, July 4, 1883.
5. The Flagship Hotel in Galveston is the only hotel in North America built over water.
6. The Heisman Trophy was named after John William Heisman who was the first full-time coach at Rice University in Houston.
7. Brazoria County has more species of birds than any other area in North America.
8.. Aransas Wildlife Refuge is the winter home of North America's only remaining flock of whooping cranes.
9. Jalapeno jelly originated in Lake Jackson in 1978.
10. The worst natural disaster in U.S. history was in 1900, caused by a hurricane, in which over 8,000 lives were lost on Galveston Island.
11. The first word spoken from the moon, July 20, 1969, was ' Houston.'
12. King Ranch in South Texas is larger than Rhode Island.
13. Tropical Storm Claudette brought a U.S. rainfall record of 43' in 24 hours in and around Alvin in July of 1979.
14. Texas is the only state to enter the U.S. by TREATY, (known as the Constitution of 1845 by the Republic of Texas to enter the Union) instead of by annexation. This allows the Texas Flag to fly at the same height as the U.S. Flag, and Texas may divide into 5 states.
15. A Live Oak tree near Fulton is estimated to be 1500 years old.
16. Caddo Lake is the only natural lake in the state.
17. Dr Pepper was invented in Waco in 1885. There is no period in Dr Pepper
18. Texas has had six capital cities: Washington-on-the Brazos, Harrisburg, Galveston, Velasco, West Columbia and Austin.
19. The Capitol Dome in Austin is the only dome in the U.S. which is taller than the Capitol Building in Washington DC (by 7 feet).
20.. The name 'Texas' comes from the Hasini Indian word 'tejas' meaning friends. Tejas is not Spanish for Texas.
21. The State Mascot is the Armadillo (an interesting bit of trivia about the armadillo is they always have four babies. They have one egg, which splits into four, and they either have four males or four females.).
22. The first domed stadium in the U.S. was the Astrodome in Houston.
The Texas facts were interesting, and I knew that at least some of them were true (Dr Pepper; the vast distances from El Paso to anywhere else). I was curious about the provision for dividing Texas into five states. Poking around the Internet it does seem to be true:
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/texas.asp
Of course, it’s not that crazy, since states have been previously divided into smaller states (ex: the creation of Maine from Massachusetts as part of the Missouri Compromise). I was interested to learn where all the additional Texas territory had gone, and why. I’d also noticed that we don’t seem to have BLM land here in Texas like back in California, and the treaty explains why… Texas ceded NO land to the Federal Government within its current boarders. All of our National Parks in Texas were specifically purchased by the Feds.