Laredo, Texas
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40 free Laredo, Texas trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Laredo sits on the north bank of the river that divides Texas from Mexico, and it has been a crossing point since Spanish colonial days. Few American cities have changed flags as often, and few move as much freight today. This quiz covers the fun facts people look up about Laredo: who founded it and what it was named after, the short-lived breakaway government that once met here, the bridges and highways behind its trade, the month-long winter festival, the teams that have called it home, and the songs, novels and screen westerns that borrowed its name. It suits locals testing their hometown knowledge, Texas history students and anyone planning a trip to the border. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave knowing more than you arrived with.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which major freeway begins in Laredo and runs north all the way to Duluth, Minnesota?
Interstate 35
Interstate 35 starts near the Mexican border and passes San Antonio, Austin and Dallas, which is why so much cross-border freight funnels through Laredo.
Q 02Laredo's biggest festival, a month-long party each February, celebrates the birthday of which US president?
George Washington
George Washington is honored with parades, a carnival, an air show and a colonial ball, and the party draws about 400,000 people a year.
Q 03The Laredo Bucks won two league championships in the 2000s as a professional team in which sport?
Ice hockey
Ice hockey thrived on the border for a decade: the Bucks won the Central Hockey League title in 2004 and 2006 before moving to Missouri in 2012.
Q 04Which famous classical musician brought a Bach tour to a Laredo international bridge in April 2019?
Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma brought his Bach Project to the Juárez–Lincoln International Bridge, one of four road bridges linking Laredo with Mexico.
Q 05Laredo recorded rare measurable snow in 2004 on the eve of which holiday?
Christmas
Christmas Eve 2004 brought about an inch of snow to Laredo, in the same storm that gave Brownsville its first measurable snowfall in more than a century.
Q 06Larry McMurtry's 1993 novel Streets of Laredo continues the story begun in which earlier western?
Lonesome Dove
Lonesome Dove came first, and Streets of Laredo follows Captain Woodrow Call as he hunts a bandit preying on the railroad; James Garner played Call in the 1995 miniseries.
Q 07Which pepper gives its name to a Laredo festival, founded in 1978, known for its eating contest?
Jalapeño
Jalapeño fans get concerts, a Miss Jalapeño contest and a 15-minute eating showdown at the festival, which is part of Laredo's February presidential birthday party.
Q 08Laredo is the third-largest US city on the Mexican border, behind San Diego and which Texas city?
El Paso
El Paso and San Diego are the only bigger US border cities; Laredo counted 255,205 residents at the 2020 census, about 95 percent of them Hispanic.
Q 09Laredo's February birthday festival includes a pageant and ball named for which Native American woman?
Pocahontas
Pocahontas has her own pageant and ball at the festival, which was first staged in 1898 by a fraternal lodge called the Improved Order of Red Men.
Q 10Trade with Mexico has made Laredo the largest example of what in the United States?
Inland port
Inland port is Laredo's title, and Nuevo Laredo across the river holds the same one for Latin America.
Q 11Laredo became part of the United States after which conflict, ended by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War left Laredo north of the new border, and residents who wanted to stay Mexican crossed the river and founded Nuevo Laredo.
Q 12Laredo counts a seventh flag, beyond the six flags over Texas, for which short-lived 1840 breakaway state?
Republic of the Rio Grande
The Republic of the Rio Grande was a federalist revolt against Mexico's centralist government that ended within the year; its reputed capitol in Laredo is now a museum.
Q 13Which former US Army post in Laredo, founded in 1849, now houses the main campus of Laredo College?
Q 21Which Laredo-born actor played the charming cartel villain Lalo Salamanca in Better Call Saul?
Tony Dalton
Tony Dalton was born in Laredo but grew up in Mexico City, and he spent years in Mexican telenovelas and films before the role made him famous north of the border.
Q 22Which Laredo-born Republican, nicknamed The Hammer, served as House majority leader from 2003 to 2005?
Tom DeLay
Tom DeLay earned the nickname enforcing party discipline as majority whip; before politics he ran a pest-control company, which got him called the Exterminator.
Q 23Laredo-born Federico Peña served as mayor of which western US city before joining Bill Clinton's cabinet?
Denver
Fort McIntosh
Fort McIntosh began as Camp Crawford, guarded a strategic river crossing for almost a century and was deactivated in 1946.
Q 14Laredo International Airport grew out of a pilot-training base closed in the 1970s by which military branch?
Air Force
Air Force jets such as the T-38 Talon trained pilots at Laredo until the base closed, and the city took over the runways for its municipal airport.
Q 15Laredo's cross-border trucking trade boomed after which trade agreement took effect on January 1, 1994?
NAFTA
NAFTA gave Laredo's job market a faster growth rate than Texas as a whole, as warehouses and customs brokers multiplied to handle the trade.
Q 16A Laredo plaza named for local soldier David Barkley honors Hispanic recipients of which US military award?
Medal of Honor
Medal of Honor recipient David Barkley, born in Laredo, drowned in 1918 after swimming the Meuse River to scout German positions.
Q 17Laredo was named in 1755 after a seaside town in which region of northern Spain?
Cantabria
Cantabria's Laredo is a beach resort on Spain's north coast, and the Texas settlement's full name, Villa de San Agustín de Laredo, also honored Saint Augustine.
Q 18Which Spanish captain founded Laredo in 1755 with just three families from a nearby ranch settlement?
Tomás Sánchez
Tomás Sánchez got permission from the regional colonizer José de Escandón and ran both civil and military affairs until Laredo became a villa in 1767.
Q 19Nuevo Laredo, the sister city directly across the border from Laredo, lies in which Mexican state?
Tamaulipas
Tamaulipas runs from Nuevo Laredo down to the Gulf of Mexico, and the two Laredos together form a cross-border metro area of more than 600,000 people.
Q 20Laredo is the seat of which South Texas county, named for a Republic of Texas official?
Webb
Webb County honors James Webb, who served the Republic of Texas as treasury secretary, secretary of state and attorney general.
Denver elected Peña its first Hispanic mayor in 1983, and he went on to run both the Transportation and Energy departments in the 1990s.
Q 24Laredo-born journalist and activist Jovita Idar was honored in 2023 on which circulating US coin?
Quarter
The quarter honoring Idar belongs to the American Women series; she championed the cause of Mexican Americans and ran a league offering free schooling to Laredo children.
Q 25Laredo's Santos Benavides was the highest-ranking Tejano officer in which military force during the 1860s?
Confederate Army
Confederate Army colonel Benavides held off a larger federal force at the Battle of Laredo in 1864 and kept Southern cotton flowing into Mexico.
Q 26Which New Orleans standard is often traced, like the cowboy ballad 'Streets of Laredo', to 'The Unfortunate Rake'?
St. James Infirmary Blues
St. James Infirmary Blues is often said to share the Laredo ballad's roots in an 18th-century folk song, though some scholars doubt the link.
Q 27The Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos, a baseball team shared with Nuevo Laredo, are named for which bird?
Owls
Owls is the English for Tecolotes, the only Mexican League club that plays home games outside Mexico, splitting them between the two Laredos.
Q 28Laredo's independent pro baseball club of 2012 to 2016 was named for which animal?
Lemurs
Lemurs was the name picked when a Shreveport franchise moved to Laredo; the club won the American Association championship in 2015.
Q 29Athletic teams at Laredo's Texas A&M International University compete under which nickname?
Dustdevils
Dustdevils teams compete in NCAA Division II's Lone Star Conference, which they joined in 2019 after thirteen seasons in the Heartland Conference.
Q 30The 1960s NBC western series Laredo followed a comic band of lawmen from which real-life force?
Texas Rangers
Texas Rangers played by Neville Brand, Peter Brown and William Smith rode for 56 episodes, and the pilot first aired as an episode of The Virginian.