Big Tex

above photo by Stryker

"Howdy folks! Welcome to the State Fair of Texas!" A couple of 1950-1960s era pics of Big Tex. Is it me, or does he look like he's counting the seconds until his next bathroom break in that second photo?

I don't know when his shirt went from red to yellow, as shown in this recent photo by
Randy A. Carlisle (Randy has lots of great Dallas stuff on his photostream) but somebody made a major fashion faux pax, in my opinion. Tex looks like he's on medication, too, nowadays.

More on Big Tex

The song "Big Tex's Girl" by the Lounge Lizards is a lovely ode to the big guy.

Little America

Two scenes of the "Little America" exhibit at the State Fair. Top one is from 1936; bottom one may be 1936 or 1937. I'm not sure what this exhibit was all about. The building looked like mounds of snow and it was decorated with penguins. I remember seeing at least one similar construction, probably in Wyoming, in the 1960s. We may have stopped there for gas, but that's about all I remember about it. It may be my faulty memory, but I thought there were several of these in remote locations in the West.

addenda: Little America, WY, is the location of the gas station I was thinking of. This exhibit may be a Sinclair Gas promotion (they owned the Little America Refinery), or as someone suggested, it may be related to Admiral Byrd's encampment in Antarctica.

Fair Park

Announcement: The Twenty-Fifth Annual Fair Exposition and Race Meet, of the State Fair of Texas, will be held in the Fair Grounds Park, Dallas, Texas, October Fifteenth-Thirtieth, Nineteen Ten. - Edwin J. Kiest, President

Cliffites should recognize the Kiest name.

In 1910 the Main Entrance included a stop for the Interurban. It only took 99 years to get another trainstop at Fair Park (the newly opened Green Line).

The New Coliseum, 1910

Exposition Building

Textile and Fine Arts Building