The Great Texas Mosquito Festival

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great texas mosquito festival

Willie Man-Chew

Since 1981, the Great Texas Mosquito Festival has been celebrated on the last Thursday, Friday and Saturday of July in Clute, TX.

Visitors are greeted by a 26-foot-tall mosquito clad in a cowboy hat and boots. Promoters claim it’s the world’s largest and we certainly hope they’re right.

Highlights include the Mosquito Calling Contest, where entrants are judged on their ability to emulate and attract the biggest, orneriest skeeters around.

What festival would be complete without a beauty pageant? Anyone in shorts can compete in the Mosquito Legs Contest.

Other events are the Mosquito Chase 5K Run, Horseshoe Pitching Tournament, Cornhole Toss, BBQ and Fajita Cook-off, Haystack Dive, Bingo, and 6oo-meter Kids Run.

Other attractions are carnival rides and games, a petting zoo, food vendors, and nightly musical entertainment. Organizers estimate 13,000 attend the three-day festival each year, sponsored in part by Budweiser, Sonic, Whataburger, and Texas Roadhouse.

A darker side to the proceedings is revealed by the sponsorship of Dow and BASF chemical companies and Killum Pest Control. We urge all mosquitoes to beware. Willie has sold you out: it’s a trap!

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Amelia Earhart Day

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Amelia Earhart Day

image – history.com [since scrubbed from site]

Today is Amelia Earhart Day, celebrating the aviation pioneer’s birth on July 24, 1897.  In 1932, she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, for which she received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross. A member of the National Woman’s Party and an early proponent of the Equal Rights Amendment, Earhart’s self-confidence and spirit of adventure made her an inspiration to young women.

Earhart vanished without a trace on July 2, 1937, during her attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Despite the likelihood that the plane was never found because it crashed into the Pacific Ocean and sank, theories about her disappearance persist to this day, running the gamut from midair abduction by aliens to a secret move to New Jersey to live under an assumed name.

One popular hypothesis claims the Japanese captured Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, torturing and executing them or holding them in secret for the rest of their lives. Some claim Earhart was a spy for the U.S. Others say she was one of many English-speaking women forced to make radio broadcasts as Tokyo Rose, although propagandists wishing to demoralize American servicemen surely would have seen the benefit in using her real name.

On July 9, 2017, the History Channel aired “Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence,” featuring a photograph that showed two Caucasian people on a dock at Jaluit Atoll, with a vessel carrying something that resembled plane wreckage in the background.

A military history blogger scouring archival images soon found the photo had been taken in 1935, two years before the crash. This revelation called into question the veracity of the entire documentary. The cable channel has since canceled reruns and deleted streaming video of its program. It also released this statement:

“HISTORY has a team of investigators exploring the latest developments about Amelia Earhart and we will be transparent in our findings. Ultimately, historical accuracy is most important to us and our viewers.”

As of July 2025, I have been unable to find any information regarding the conclusion of the investigation. Please let me know if you’ve seen any so I can update this post.

No matter the truth of her death, we should all celebrate the life and accomplishments of this extraordinary woman.

Happy Amelia Earhart Day!

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