---
title: "14 Interesting Facts about Austin"
url: https://www.kickassfacts.com/austin-facts/
date: 2021-06-14
modified: 2021-06-14
lang: en
author: "jazz"
description: "Here are 14 Interesting Facts About Austin. 1-5 Interesting Facts About Austin 1. Texas billionaire and former presidential candidate Ross Perot wrote a blank cheque to fund and save the..."
categories:
  - "Fact List"
  - "USA"
image: https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/austin-article.jpg
word_count: 154
---

# 14 Interesting Facts about Austin

Here are 14 Interesting Facts About Austin.

## 1-5 Interesting Facts About Austin

![](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Treaty_oak_austin.jpeg)

1. Texas billionaire and former presidential candidate Ross Perot wrote a blank cheque to fund and save the 500-year-old Treaty Oak in Austin, Texas which was poisoned by a vandal. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Oak_(Austin,_Texas)#Poisoning_and_recovery)

2. When the city of Austin, Texas asked people online to rename their Solid Waste Services Department, the winner was "The Fred Durst Society of the Humanities and Arts". - [Source](https://www.npr.org/2011/02/06/133526729/those-are-crappy-names-for-a-waste-department)

3. In 1962, at the University of Texas at Austin, Janis Joplin was voted "ugliest man on campus". - [Source](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/features/joplin.htm)

4. The oldest cat ever recorded lived to be 38 years (and 3 days) old in Austin, Texas from 1967-2005. Creme Puff lived with her owner Jake Perry, who had been the owner of the previous record holder, Grandpa Rex Allen. - [Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creme_Puff_(cat))

5. Austin, TX is the only city in the world still actively using moonlight towers. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_tower)

## 6-10 Interesting Facts About Austin

![](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/chicken-shit-bingo.jpg)

6. "Chicken shit bingo" is a weekly event at the Little Longhorn Saloon in Austin, Texas. Participants purchase a ticket that corresponds to a random number on the table. If the chicken poops on your number you win a cash prize. - [Source](https://do512.com/p/chicken-shit-bingo)

7. A lab named Waterloo Labs built a real-life Mario Kart at an amusement park in Austin, TX. - [Source](http://waterloolabs.com/#!real-life-mario-kart/c1m0d)

8. The city of Austin, TX was terrorized by a serial killer dubbed "The Servant Girl Annihilator" in the late 1800s and there are people who believe the same killer went on to become Jack the Ripper several years later. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_Girl_Annihilator)

9. In 2009, the city of Austin fertilized the concert grounds of the Austin City Limits music festival prior to its start with "Dillo Dirt", a product of human feces and industrial waste, causing many attendees to develop skin ulcers and pinkeye. - [Source](https://bxroberts.org/2011/07/austins-dirty-secret-dillo-dirt/)

10. A man crashed a plane into an IRS building in 2010 in Austin, Texas, but the story never got much national coverage. - [Source](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-stack-statement-alleg_n_467539)

## 11-14 Interesting Facts About Austin

![](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Congress_Ave._Bridge.jpg)

11. The Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, TX has the largest urban bat colony in the world. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_W._Richards_Congress_Avenue_Bridge)

12. There is a film festival in Austin, Texas that plays movies for 24 hours straight and competition to gain entry is so fierce that essays and a sort of interview process are required to gain entry. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt-Numb-A-Thon)

13. The Independent building in Austin, Texas has been nicknamed the "Jenga Tower" and the "Tetris Tower" due to the unique design of “overhanging / suspended” sections. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Independent_(Austin,_Texas))

14. A plot of 3 million acres called the XIT Ranch was traded in exchange to build Austin, the capitol city of Texas in 1882. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XIT_Ranch)