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Texas.
Texas facts:
Beaumont to El Paso: 742 miles
Beaumont to Chicago: 770 miles
El Paso is closer to California than to Dallas. In fact, El Paso is closer to Los Angeles on the Pacific Coast than it is to Port Arthur on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Port Arthur, on the other hand, is closer to Jacksonville, on the Atlantic East Coast of Florida than it is to El Paso.
World's first rodeo was in Pecos... July 4, 1883.
Professional sports teams include the Dallas Cowboys, Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Stars, Houston Astros, Houston Comets, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, and Texas Rangers.
The Flagship Hotel in Galveston is the only hotel in North America built entirely over water.
The first suspension bridge in the United States was the Waco Bridge. Built in 1870 and still in use today as a pedestrian crossing of the Brazos River.
The Heisman Trophy was named after John William Heisman who was the first full time coach for Rice University in Houston.
Texas is often referred to as the Silicon Valley of the south and is home to Dell and Compaq comuters.
Brazoria County has more species of birds than any other area in North America.
Texas is home to about 18 million people, 15 million cattle, 2.5 million deer, and 200,000 alligators.
Jalapeno jelly originated in Lake Jackson in 1978.
The worst natural disaster in U.S. history was in 1900 caused by a hurricane in which over 8000 lives were lost on Galveston Island.
The first word spoken from the moon, July 20, 1969, was "Houston..”
Amarillo has the world’s largest Helium well.
King Ranch, near Corpus Christi, is larger than Rhode Island and includes around 50,000 head of cattle.
Laredo, Texas is the world’s largest inland port.
The state of Texas is as large as all of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois combined.
D/FW, or the Dallas / Fort Worth Airport, is larger than New York City’s entire Manhattan Island.
Texas farmers grow more than 45 different commercial fruit and vegetable crops. They produce the first tree-ripened apples of the year in the US, and Texas growers provide the first domestic crop of fresh spring onions on the US market.
More land is farmed in Texas than in any other state. Texas possesses 23,292 farms with 1,000 acres or more for a total of 132 million acres, or 80% of the state land area.
More species of bats live in Texas than in any other part of the United States.
Texas boasts the nation’s largest herd of white-tailed deer. (And is the largest state in the production of wool.) In fact, Texas is the country's biggest producer of oil, cattle, sheep, minerals and cotton.
Tropical Storm Claudette brought a U.S. rainfall record of 43" in 24 hours in and around Alvin in July 1979.
Of the Weather Top-Ten Record Holders, Texas is in the top ten in the following categories:
Hottest Annual Average: Brownsville (73.6) and Corpus Christi (72.1)
Driest Cities: El Paso
Windiest Cities: Amarillo and Lubbock
Sunniest: El Paso
Most Humid: Port Arthur, Corpus Christi, and Houston
Least Humid: El Paso
The average January temperature for Amarillo is 36.7 degrees while in Brownsville the average is 61.4. On March 27, 1984, the temperature in Brownsville was 106 degrees while Amarillo reported snow and 35 degrees.
Of the nation’s top ten largest cities, three of them are in Texas: Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. 70% of the population of Texas lives within 200 miles of Austin.
Texas's population grew by 1.5 million in the early 1990s, making the state the second largest in the country after California.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area has more residents - 5,221,801 - than 31 U.S. states. For example, the entire state of Arizona has about 5.1 million residents.
Texas is the only state to enter the U.S. by TREATY, instead of by annexation. (This allows the Texas flag to be the only flag that can legally fly at the same height as the US flag.)
The last battle of the civil war was fought on May 12-13, 1865 at Palmito Ranch, Texas. (It was a confederate victory.)
A Live Oak tree near Fulton is estimated to be 1500 years old.
Texas has 191 Lakes, but Caddo Lake is the only one in the state that started as a natural lake. All together, there is over 6,300 square miles of inland lakes and streams, which is second only to Alaska.
All Texas rivers empty into the Gulf of Mexico.
Texas is home to part of the Rocky Mountain range and has 90 mountains that are over a mile high, with Guadalupe Peak being the highest point at 8,749 feet. Texas also has over 80,000 miles of rivers and streams, areas of desert, forest, sub-tropic climate, and plains, and coasts.
Within the borders of Texas are four national forests, two national parks, one national seashore, one national preserve, two national recreation areas, and one national monument. (plus 5 state forests and 120 state parks)
Dr Pepper was invented in Waco in 1885. There is no period after Dr in Dr Pepper.
85 percent of the public libraries in Texas were founded by women’s clubs.
During World War II, there more than 70 prisoner-of-war camps in Texas, which is more than in any other state. These primarily housed German soldiers from the famed Afrika Korps, although Italian and Japanese prisoners were also held there.
Texas has had six capital cities:.
1. Washington-on-the-Brazos
2. Harrisburg
3. Galveston
4. Velasco
5. West Columbia
6. Austin
The Capitol Dome in Austin is the only dome in the U.S. which is taller; than the Capitol Building in Washington D.C.(by 7 feet).
The San Jacinto Monument, near Houston, is among the tallest columns in the world. At 570 feet, it is about 20 feet taller than the Washington Monument in the District of Columbia.
“Six Flags of Texas” refers to the flags of six different countries under which Texas has existed.
The changes in sovereignty over Texas is as follows:
Spain, 1519 - 1685;
France, 1685 - 1690;
Spain, 1690 - 1821;
Mexico, 1821 - 1836;
Republic of Texas, 1836 - 1845;
United States, 1845 - 1861;
Confederate States, 1861 - 1865;
United States, 1865 - present.
The “Six Flags” Theme Parks originated in Texas, with the original Six Flags Over Texas opening in 1961. It originally had separate distinct sections of attractions for each of the six countries that reigned over the state. Six Flags now owns 29 different theme parks.
Texas is the only U.S. state that was once an independent nation. The decisive battle in that event was fought on April 21, 1836 at San Jacinto. Santa Anna’s entire force of 1600 men was killed or captured by General Sam Houston’s army of 800 Texans - - only 9 Texans died.
Ysleta is one of the oldest towns in Texas, but it was originally part of Mexico until the river course of the Rio Grande shifted, and put the town in Texas.
Texas is the second-largest state with 267,277 square miles of area. The third-largest state is California with only 158,869 square miles. (Alaska, of course is the largest state, but the least inhabitable, with the bulk of its surface covered in ice.)
There are 367 miles of coastline in Texas along the Gulf of Mexico, but if you follow the meanderings of the tidewater along the coastline, there are 624 miles of shore.
There are more than 70,000 miles of highways in Texas
The name Texas comes from the Hasini Indian word "tejas" meaning friends. Tejas is not Spanish for Texas.
The State animal 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.
The first domed stadium in the U.S. was the Astrodome in Houston.
In 1978, there were 71 million barrels of oil produced in Yoakum County, which is an average of 195,000 barrels per day.