Big Tex at the State Fair of Texas

Big Tex started life as a giant Santa Claus in the small East Texas town of Kerens in nineteen forty-nine, built to lure shoppers off the highway. Two years later the State Fair of Texas bought the frame for seven hundred fifty dollars. Artist Jack T.

Bridges transformed Santa into a fifty-two-foot cowboy, and Big Tex debuted at the nineteen fifty-two State Fair wearing size seventy boots and a seventy-five-gallon hat. He became the beloved voice of the fairgrounds, his recorded greeting booming across Fair Park every October. On October nineteenth, twenty twelve, an electrical fire started in his right boot and worked its way up through the structure, destroying the icon in minutes.

Texans mourned. He was rebuilt, returned in twenty thirteen at fifty-five feet tall, three feet taller than the original, and has welcomed visitors every fall since.