Investigating the origins of American words, names, quotations and phrases.
"How hard could it be?” was Texas author/musician/humorist Kinky Friedman’s 2006 campaign slogan in the race for Governor of Texas. He finished fourth. Another popular Kinky Friedman…
"Tex Randall" is the name that was given in 1987 to the 47-foot-tall statue in Canyon, Texas, in Randall County. The statue was originally built in 1959 to promote a Western curio shop…
Austin is the only city in the country that has "moonlight towers." In 1894, 31 arc light towers (165 feet tall) were purchased by the city of Austin from the city of Detroit. Seventeen…
"Walking back to Houston" is the Ace-King starting hand in Texas Hold'em poker. Championship player T. J. Cloutier coined the term, saying: "I can see you learned to play in…
Trader Vic's is a chain of Polynesian-themed restaurants founded by Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr. (1902-1984). The restaurants were enormously popular in the 1950s and 1960s, during a Tiki…
Texas City and its surrounding region in Galveston County is home to many petrochemical plants. By at least 1990, Texas City acquired the unattractive nickname of "Toxic City." The…
"The Stroll" is a term for the center street (the social center) in an area of New York City with a large black population. The Stroll was originally between 26th and 63rd Streets on the…
Madison Square Garden is often called the "mecca," a puzzling term to many today. However, the term "mecca" was first applied to the second Madison Square Garden (at Madison…
Southwest Airlines began in 1967 as a low-cost airline based in Dallas, serving Houston and San Antonio. It is now one of the largest airlines in the United States. GSD&M Idea City came up with…
The "bacon dog" (a hot dog wrapped in bacon, also often containing cheese) has been served in the United States since the early 1960s. In the 1990s, Mexican street vendors began selling…
"Chiletoque" appears in a 1952 article about the Original Mexican Restaurant (since 1899 or 1900) of San Antonio, listed as one of the "specialties served only at the Original…
"The Giant Side of Texas" has been a slogan of the city of Lubbock since 2004. The perhaps inevitable parody of the slogan has been: "The Giant Backside of Texas." Wikipedia:…
Black's Barbecue in Lockhart is the oldest family-owned restaurant in Texas (since 1932). Black's slogan is "8 Days a Week." The Magnolia Cafe in Austin has a slogan of…
"Bacon-wrapped hot dogs" have been featured in newspaper recipes since at least the 1960s. Usually these were bacon-wrapped, cheese-filled sausages. The "Sonoran hot dog" (also…
A "footlong" (or "foot-long," originally two words) is a twelve-inch-long hot dog. The "foot long" craze began about 1935; by 1938, many restaurants (mostly in the…
A "slaw dog" ("slaw dawg" for the Southern pronunciation, also sometimes written as one word) is simply cole slaw placed on a hot dog. It cannot be known who first put cole slaw…
The taco was featured in a taco salad by the 1960s. Nachos were invented in the 1940s and have been featured in a "nacho salad" since at least the 1980s. The nacho salad is decidedly less…
Taco Bueno is a restaurant that began in Abilene in 1967. The restaurant chain (a competitor to Taco Bell) now has many locations is several states and is headquartered in Farmers Branch, Texas.…
In January 1966, the Abilene (TX) Reporter-News held a contest to name its special area of Texas. The winning name (selected by several people) was "Big Country." The Big Country had been…
The "Texas Midwest" (also called the "Big Country") is the about-20-county area around Abilene (the hub city of the mostly rural area). The city of Haskell calls itself the…