Texas History Trivia

Answers are at the Bottom of the Page

Question 1:

What where the Dallas Bluebonnets and Fort Worth Shamrocks?

Question 2:

How many towns served as the Capital of the Republic of Texas?

Question 3:

Anthony Lucas, the oil pioneer who drilled Spindletop, wasn’t born in Texas. Where was he from?

Question 4:

What where the names of the twins for whom the famous Twin Sisters cannons were named?

Question 5:

The Joint Resolution annexing Texas to the United States provided that Texas could divide itself into five separate states. Would they have been slave states or free states?

Question 6:

In 1903, when the county seat of Hartley County was moved to Channing, how did they get the old courthouse to its new location?

Question 7:

Why is No. 3 Saint James Street, London significant in Texas History?

Question 8:

What name did Sam Houston take when he became a Roman Catholic in 1833?

Question 9:

What happened to Houston’s Colt Stadium after the Astrodome was built?

Question 10:

What did Texas Ranger Bigfoot Wallace call his favorite rifle?

Trivia Answers

Answer 1:

Women’s Professional Football teams.Both were franchises in the WPFL (Women’s Professional Football League). They were active in 1973-76 and competed against teams from Los Angeles, Pasadena, Toledo, Detroit, and Toronto. Games were played at Texas Stadium and drew as many as 5000 fans.

Each team’s roster consisted of forty-two women who were paid $25 per game, plus worker’s compensation. Another team, the Houston Herricanes, joined the league in 1977 and played through 1979.

Answer 2:

Five

Washington on the Brazos was the provisional capital were independence was declared. With Mexican troops approaching, interim President Burnett moved the Capital to Harrisburg (now part of Houston).

The first elected legislature met at Columbia (now West Columbia), where the decision was made to move the Capital to the new town of Houston during the next session. In 1839 the government moved from Houston to the little hamlet of Waterloo, newly rechristened Austin.

In 1842, when the Mexican Army occupied San Antonio, the government was evacuated to Washington on the Brazos. President Houston tried to use that opportunity to set up his namesake city as the seat of government once again, and succeeded with the executive branch.

The legislature, however, continued to meet at Washington on the Brazos until the eve of statehood, when Austin was made the permanent state capital.

Answer 3:

Croatia

Anthony Lucas (born Antun Lucic) was born in 1855. He served in the Austrian Navy and studied mechanical engineering before coming to the United States in 1879.

He not only brought in the Spindletop Gusher, but also was the first to apply a steam engine to rotary drilling and helped develop the blowout preventer.

Answer 4:

Elizabeth and Eleanor

When they got word that the Texians where fighting for their freedom, the citizens of Cincinnati sent a matched pair of cannon to help the cause. The guns were sent down the Mississippi to New Orleans, escorted by a Dr. Rice, along with his wife and twin six-year-old girls, Elizabeth and Eleanor.

When the Texian agent took possession of the thunder tubes, he commented that he had never seen two prettier sets of twins. Thereafter the guns were always referred to as the Twin Sisters.

Answer 5:

Both

The Joint Resolution provided that any new state lying South of the Missouri Compromise Line could be slave or free, depending on the will of the people. New states lying North of that line would be free. The Compromise of 1850 made the line irrelevant to the issue, as Texas gave up all her lands North of it in exchange for $10 million.

The clause in the Joint Resolution providing for the division reads:

New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution; and such states as may be formed out of the territory lying south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri Compromise Line, shall be admitted into the Union, with or without slavery, as the people of each State, asking admission shall desire; and in such State or States as shall be formed out of said territory, north of said Missouri Compromise Line, slavery, or involuntary servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited.

Answer 6:

Cowboys from the XIT Ranch set the old frame building on wheels, then mounted up and hauled it fifteen miles to it’s new location.

Answer 7:

It was the home of the Texas Legation, where Dr. Ashbel Smith, as Texian minister to Great Britain, played the great diplomatic game to further the interests of the young republic from 1842 to 1846. 
The legation rented rooms in the building from Berry Bros. and Rudd, Wine and Spirit Merchants, who have conducted business at that address since 1698. In 1923, Cutty Sark Scotch Whisky was born in that same building. 

Answer 8:

Sam (who was not given a middle name by his parents) chose Samuel Pablo when he joined the Catholic Church as required of colonists under Mexican law. Later, in 1854, a Baptist minister dunked him in Rocky Creek near Independence. When told his sins had been washed away, he replied, “Lord help the fish down below.”

Answer 9:

It was disassembled and trucked to Mexico.

After the Astrodome opened, Colt Stadium became a holding pen for odds and ends from Astroworld. In 1973 it was broken down and sold to a minor league team in Torreon, Mexico for $100,000. There it was known as Estadio Superior, It was later moved to Tampico and renamed Estadio Angel Castro. It was scrapped in the late 1980s.

Answer 10:

Sweet Lips

William Alexander Anderson Wallace was the son of a Virginia planter. He came to Texas at the age of nineteen, after his older brother and a cousin were killed in the Goliad Massacre. He arrived determined to take his revenge on Mexico.

He was imprisoned in Mexico after taking part in the Mier Expedition and surviving the black bean executions. These events did not help his attitude toward Mexico. Serving with Jack’s Hays’ Texas Rangers during the Mexican War, he had to be restrained  from attacking the Mexican officer carrying the surrender flag at the Battle of Monterrey.