Oklahoma Facts

There is a town called Okay, OK. It has a population of 600 people.

Zebco is the push-button fishing reel your dad handed you. Its maker, the Zero Hour Bomb Company, made oil-well bombs - until its patents ran out. In 1947, Texas watchmaker R.D. Hull brought a fix: a board of nails and a coffee-can lid, an idea from a grocery clerk pulling string off a spool. It worked, and the bomb company renamed itself Zebco: ZEro hour Bomb COmpany. Someone is still handing one to a kid right now.

Grady was a 1,200-pound Oklahoma cow. In February 1949 she bolted for the only light in a dark shed and squeezed through a 17-inch-wide silo window. She was stuck for four days: the steel-rimmed opening wouldn't widen. 5,400 letters and 700 telegrams poured in from 45 states. A Denver newspaper flew in farm expert Ralph Partridge, who greased a ramp and freed her. She lived 12 more years as a celebrity.

Every October, Texas and Oklahoma play their biggest football rivalry at a state fair. Carnival rides spin outside the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. More than 92,000 fans pack the stands. Tickets split 50-50 at the 50-yard line. Oklahoma's crimson fills one side, Texas's burnt orange fills the other. Locked in at the fair through 2036. Half crimson, half orange, every October.