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 Close of Business 9/4/2008 Current Rate 2.2350% (see daily rate page for full information) Allocation Factor 0.0000612320 7 Day Net Yield 2.25% Weighted Avg. Maturity (1) 35 Days Weighted Avg. Maturity (2) 85 Days Market Value Per Share 0.999426 |
Texas Trivia
| Texas is popularly known as The Lone Star State. |
| Texas is the only state to enter the United States by treaty instead of territorial annexation. |
| The state was an independent nation from 1836 to 1845. |
| Texas boasts the nation's largest herd of whitetail deer. |
| A coastal live oak located near Fulton is the oldest tree in the state. The tree has an estimated age of more than 1,500 years. |
| Sam Houston, arguably the most famous Texan, was actually born in Virginia. Houston served as governor of Tennessee before coming to Texas. |
| Caddo Lake is the only natural lake in the state. |
| When Texas was annexed in 1845 it retained the right to fly its flag at the same height as the national flag. |
| The first offensive action of the Texas Revolution occurred in Goliad on October 9, 1835 when local colonists captured the fort and town. |
| On December 20, 1835 the first Declaration of Texas Independence was signed in Goliad and the first flag of Texas Independence was hoisted. |
| The Hertzberg Circus Museum in San Antonio contains one of the largest assortments of circus memorabilia in the world. |
| The Alamo is located in San Antonio. It is where Texas defenders fell to Mexican General Santa Anna and the phrase Remember the Alamo originated. The Alamo is considered the cradle of Texas liberty and the state's most popular historic site. |
| The capital city of Austin is located on the Colorado River in south-central Texas. The capitol building is made from Texas pink granite. It served as the capital of the Republic of Texas in 1840-1842. |
| Austin is considered the live music capital of the world. |
| Dr Pepper was invented in Waco in 1885. The Dublin Dr Pepper, 85 miles west of Waco, still uses pure imperial cane sugar in its product. There is no period after the Dr in Dr Pepper. |
| 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. |
| In 1836 five sites served as temporary capitals of Texas: Washington-on-the-Brazos, Harrisburg, Galveston, Velasco, and Columbia. Sam Houston moved the capital to Houston in 1837. In 1839 the capital was moved to the new town of Austin. |
| The capitol in Austin opened May 16, 1888. The dome of the building stands seven feet higher than that of the nation's Capitol in Washington, D.C. |
| Texas comes from the Hasinai Indian word tejas meaning friends or allies. |
| The armadillo is the official state mammal. |
| Texas has the first domed stadium in the country. The structure was built in Houston and opened in April 1965. |
| The worst natural disaster in United States history was caused by a hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900. Over 8000 deaths were recorded. |
| The lightning whelk is the official state shell. |
| The first word spoken from the moon on July 20, 1969 was Houston. |
| Texas' largest county is Brewster with 6,208 square miles. |
| Texas possesses three of the top ten most populous cities in the United States. These towns are Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. |
| The City of El Paso is closer to Needles, California than it is to Dallas. |
| Texas includes 267,339 square miles, or 7.4% of the nation's total area. |
| The state's cattle population is estimated to be near 16 million. |
| More land is farmed in Texas than in any other state. |
| More species of bats live in Texas than in any other part of the United States. |
| Laredo is the world's largest inland port. |
| Port Lavaca has the world's longest fishing pier. Originally part of the causeway connecting the two sides of Lavaca Bay, the center span of was destroyed by Hurricane Carla in 1961. |
| Texas is the only state to have the flags of 6 different nations fly over it. They are: Spain, France, Mexico, Republic of Texas, Confederate States, and the United States. |
| The Tyler Municipal Rose Garden is the world's largest rose garden. It contains 38,000 rose bushes representing 500 varieties of roses set in a 22-acre garden. |
| The world's first rodeo was held in Pecos on July 4, 1883. |
| The Flagship Hotel on Seawall Boulevard in Galveston is the only hotel in North America built entirely over the water. |
| The Heisman trophy is named for John William Heisman the first full-time coach and athletic director at Rice University in Houston. |
| Brazoria County has more species of birds than any other comparable area in North America. |
| The Aransas Wildlife Refuge is the winter home of North America's only remaining flock of whooping cranes. |
| Jalapeno pepper jelly originated in Lake Jackson and was first marketed in 1978. |
| Although six flags have flown over Texas, there have been eight changes of government: Spanish 1519-1685, French 1685-1690, Spanish 1690-1821, Mexican 1821-1836, Republic of Texas 1836-1845, United States 1845-1861, Confederate States 1861-1865, United States 1865-present. |
| The King Ranch in Texas is bigger than the state of Rhode Island. |
| During the period of July 24-26, 1979, the Tropical Storm Claudette brought 45 inches of rain to an area near Alvin, Texas, contributing to more than $600 million in damages. Claudette produced the United States 24 hour rainfall record of 43 inches. |
| More wool comes from the state of Texas than any other state in the United States. |
| Edwards Plateau in west central Texas is the top sheep growing area in the country. |
| There are 254 counties in Texas. The first 23 counties were created on March 17, 1836. In 1921, the last county, Kenedy, was created. |
| Brewster County is the largest county in Texas with 6,204 square miles of territory. It is equal in size to the combined areas of Connecticut and Rhode Island. |
| Harris County is the most populous county in Texas with over 3 million people. It also is the fifth most populous county in the nation. Loving County is the least populous county in Texas with only 96 residents. |
| Val Verde County was named after a Civil War battle. |
| Freestone County was named after a type of peach. |
| At one time, all county courthouses had to be centrally located so that each citizen could travel to the seat, vote, and return home in a day. |
| Popular singer, Waylon Jennings, was born in Littlefield, TX in 1937. |
| In 1912, the former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, was born Claudia Alta Taylor in Karnack, Texas. |
| Former President Dwight Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas in 1890. |
| Leon Jaworski, late partner of Fulbright & Jaworski, one of the foremost law firms in Texas, was named as Watergate special prosecutor in 1973 after Richard Nixon ordered the firing of Archibald Cox in the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre”. |
| Liz Smith, New York’s most quoted and most admired gossip columnist, was born in Fort Worth in 1923. |
| The common Texas possum is unaffected by the bite of most poisonous snakes, including the copperhead, rattlesnake, and water moccasin. |
| The Academy Awards statuette, the Oscar, was named for a Texan – Oscar Pierce whose niece worked for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood. |
| “Old Rip” (a horned frog) was entombed in the Eastland County Courthouse in 1897 and found alive 31 years later in 1928. He died of pneumonia following a nationwide tour and was laid to rest in a satin-lined casket on display in the new courthouse. |
| Angelina County is the only county in Texas named for a woman. Angelina was an Indian child took in by the Spanish explorers. |
| In the 1922 “Dixie Classic”, Texas A&M’s football team was suffering from injuries and the coach had a former player come down from the stands and suit up to play if needed; thus beginning the tradition of the “12th man”. |
| In 1916, a group of Aggies branded the University of Texas mascot, with "13 - 0", the score of a previous Texas A&M victory. Unable to remove the brand, it was altered by connecting the 1&3 to form a B, the – into an E, and inserting a V before the O and BEVO was born. |
| The “Field of Cadillacs” outside of Amarillo is a row of 10 different models “planted” hood first by Stanley Marsh, to display the change in tail-fin design from 1948-1964. |
| The 3rd largest meteor crater in the U.S. is 10 miles SW of Odessa in Ector County. Originally 500 ft in diameter and 103 ft deep, it has been filled to its current depth of 6 ft. Fragments have been found but the main meteor mass has never been discovered. |
| San Elizario, a town located about 20 miles south of El Paso, was originally on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande River, but because of a change in the river’s course in the early 19th century, the village ended up on the U.S. bank. |
| The pavement on sections of U.S. 81 and U.S. 287 in Montague County contains gold. In 1936, sand containing about $250,000 worth of gold was mixed into the concrete for 39 miles of the two highways. There are only 54 cents worth of gold per ton of ore. |
| An 1836 map shows that the Republic of Texas included the portion of Colorado in which is located one of today’s most popular ski resorts, Crested Butte. |
| Although the patent eluded him, D.G. Gilbreath, an inventor and cattleman from West Texas is said to have invented the paperclip. |
| Fletcher Davis, who owned a downtown café in Athens Texas, invented the hamburger in the 1880’s. The delicacy was so popular that in l904, the inventor went to the St. Louis World's Fair, where the hamburger was introduced to the world. |
| The site of the Rice Hotel in Houston served as the capital of the Republic of Texas from 1837-1839. |
| The Spanish mission Alamo was named for a grove of cottonwood trees nearby; Alamo is the Spanish word for cottonwood. |
| The colors in the Texas Flag have a special significance: red for courage, white for liberty, and blue for loyalty. |
| The Lone Star flag was approved in 1839 and designed by Johanna Troutman. |
| In 1903 Clara Driscoll bought the Alamo to keep it from being torn down and funded extensive restoration earning her the title “savior of the Alamo” |
| The Alamo has been used for a number of things including San Antonio’s first hospital from 1806-1812. |
| The first election in Texas was held in San Antonio on August 1, 1731. |
| The first traffic laws in Texas were passed in 1907. Speed limits were 18 mph and automobiles had to stop when meeting horse-drawn vehicles. |
| The Guadalupe bass was named the official state fish of Texas by the 71st Legislature in 1989. |
| There are four national forests in Texas. |
| The tallest ferris wheel in the Western Hemisphere is at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas. |
| The world’s third largest single structure telescope is atop Mount Fowlkes in the Davis Mountains. |
| More than 5,000 flowering plants are native to Texas. |
| Texas is the fifth largest wine producer in the United States. |
| The world’s largest livestock auction is held in Amarillo. |
| The tallest Texan stands a whopping 52 feet tall – it’s Big Tex, the friendly cowboy who welcomes visitors to the State Fair of Texas. |
| The Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport covers 28.9 square miles, making it larger than Manhattan, New York. |
| The world’s first computer chip was produced by Texas Instruments in Dallas in 1958. |
| Texas theaters first started showing motion picture in 1905. |
| The largest concentration of bats in the world is found in Bracken Cave near San Antonio, home to some 40 million Mexican free-tailed bats. |
| Dedicated Oct. 4, 1876, Texas A&M was Texas' first public higher education institution. |
| Judy Garland and the Supremes headlined the first concert ever held at the Astrodome. |
| The Astrodome was originally called the Harris County Domed Stadium in 1965. |
| The City of San Antonio calls itself “The Yellow Rose of Texas”. |
| The Battle of San Jacinto lasted 18 minutes. |
| Corsicana’s Collin Street Bakery uses over 400,000 pounds of pecans each year to make fruit cakes. |
| Gail Borden Jr., who invented the patented process for condensing milk, also prepared the first topographical map of Texas. |
| Interstate 10, the longest highway in Texas, runs east and west across 878 miles of Texas countryside. |
| John Denver, even though best- known for his residence in Colorado, was a Texan who lived most of his young- adult life in Fort Worth as Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. |