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- Central Texas is often referred to as the "Silicon Hills" due to the diverse group of high-tech companies and organizations located here.
- In downtown Austin, north-south streets are named after Texas rivers while east-west streets were originally named for Texas trees. But in 1887, the city adopted the numbered street plan, so now we have 5th Street rather than Pine Street and 6th Street instead of Pecan Street.
- The first newspaper to be published in Austin, the Austin City Gazette, began publishing on October 30, 1839.
- Robert Redford, at the age of five, learned to swim at Barton Springs. The average water temperature there is between 67 and 70 degrees, even in winter.
- The first mascot of The University of Texas was actually a dog named Pig Bellmont, not Bevo the Longhorn. He died in 1923 after being hit by a Model T.
- The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center is home to one of the last Gutenberg Bibles as well as the first photograph ever taken.
- UT played its first football game in 1893.
- The diameter of each clock face on the UT Tower is 14ft. 8 in. The clock was first set in motion in 1936.
- The Longhorn band, “The Showband of the Southwest,” owns the largest bass drum in the world. It’s named Big Bertha.
- The "Hook 'em Horns" hand sign was created by head cheerleader Harley Clark in 1955.
- The French Legation, at 802 San Marcos, is Austin's oldest documented structure still on its original site. Construction began in December 1840 to the specifications ordered by France's representative to the Republic of Texas, Jean Pierre Isidore Alphonse Dubois de Saligny. The French Legation is now open to the public as a museum.
- 70% of the population of Texas lives within 200 miles of Austin.
- The Texas State Capitol was built of distinctive Texas pink granite quarried in nearby Marble Falls.
- Austin is the only US city that still retains and uses a portion of the tower lighting system that was once used during the late 1800s. Seventeen of the original thirty-one 165 ft. moonlight towers are scattered around Austin. A moonlight tower also serves as the center post for the Zilker Park "Christmas Tree" of lights each year.
- Austin has more people than the whole state of Alaska.
- Writer O. Henry gave Austin the nickname "The City of the Violet Crown" in 1894 in his political humor story Tictocq, The Great French Detective, in Austin.
- Town Lake, Lake Austin and Lake Travis, the three lakes in the Austin area, are not real lakes. They're dammed up sections of the Colorado River. In fact, all but one of the lakes in Texas are man-made with dams on the numerous rivers, which is Caddo Lake in East Texas.
- There is a legend that Mt. Bonnell was once called Antoinette's Leap, named after a damsel who leaped to her death to avoid capture from Indians that killed her lover, who fought to his death to defend her.
- The Tonkawa tribe, the Comanches, and the Lipan Apaches originally settled this area.
- Red Wassenich coined the "Keep Austin Weird" slogan in 2000.
- The Texas Governor’s Mansion is the oldest continuously inhabited house in Texas. It is said to be occupied by the ghost of a former governor's nephew who committed suicide in the northwest bedroom in 1865.
- Austin has 11,800 acres of greenbelt, areas of uncultivated land used for recreation around the community.
- 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.
- Austin was the site of an unusual fight over government records when it was the capital of the fledgling Republic of Texas. After Mexican troops invaded San Antonio in 1842, Texas President Sam Houston feared Austin would be next and moved the seat of government to Houston. Austin residents worried the move might be permanent and vowed to keep Austin the capital by preventing government documents from being removed. The resulting bloodless clash between residents and soldiers sent to retrieve the records became known as “The Archive War.” The residents won, and Austin became the capital again in 1844.
- Many well known movies have been filmed in the Austin area, including What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Courage Under Fire, Dazed and Confused, Office Space, and Miss Congeniality.
- The State Capitol houses portraits of every President and Governor of Texas, starting with the current chief executive. Each time a new governor is elected, every portrait has to be moved back one space.
- The log cabin which served as Austin's capitol building in the early years (until the limestone capitol was built in 1853) was situated not at the head of Congress Avenue, but at 8th and Colorado, where City Hall is now located.
- The first sale of lots in the newly laid-out capital city of Austin was held August 1, 1839, under an oak tree in what is now known as Republic Square. The highest price paid was $2,800.
- Jessie Andrews was the first woman to enroll at the University of Texas in 1883 at the age of sixteen. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree at age nineteen, and by 1888 had served as an instructor in the German Department of the University.
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