Hutto Hippo Hunt

Hutto is a Swedish cotton-and-railroad town with the strangest mascot in Texas: the hippopotamus. Legend has it that in 1915 a circus train stopped here and a hippo escaped into muddy Cotton Creek, and the whole town turned out to wrangle it back. True or tall tale, Hutto ran with it — today hundreds of concrete hippos of every size stand guard outside businesses, schools, and homes, and the high school teams are the Hippos. This short downtown walk goes hippo-hunting through the old rail-and-cotton core, pairing the town's famous statues with the real history behind them: the railroad, the Swedish immigrant farmers, and the man named Hutto who gave the place its name.