2023 texas sophe conference

Fun Facts about Austin

• The Capital city is only the 4th most populous city in Texas.

• Austin is the only city in the world that still operates "moon towers." There are 17 around town.

• Austin was originally named Waterloo and you'll see references to that around town: a park, record store, restaurant, even our local sparkling water!
• Austin gets an average of 300 days of sunshine with gorgeous sunsets!
• Movies filmed in Austin: Boyhood, Dazed and Confused, Office Space, Miss Congeniality, Kill Bill, Spy Kids.
• Austin has the largest urban bat colony in North America, and their emergence draws viewers on warm evenings. Every August, the city also hosts festival celebrating the bats.

• Each spring, the city celebrates the birthday of Eeyore, the character from Winnie the Poo with a festival at Pease Park.

• Famous UT Alumni include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Walter Cronkite, Janis Joplin, Stacey Abrams, First Ladies Laura Bush and Lady Bird Johnson, and Brené Brown.
• O. Henry famously nicknamed Austin the "City of the Violet Crown," and the name has stuck, as well as "Bat City" for its large colony of Mexican free-tailed bats.
• Austin's Barton Springs was dammed into a pool in the 1920 and became a popular swimming spot for locals and visitors (Robert Redford learned to swim there at the age of 5. But long before there was an Austin, it was the site of Tonkawa purification rituals. It is also home to the endangered Barton Spring salamander, which can't be found anywhere else on earth.
• Austin has the only nude beach in Texas, Hippie Hollow.