Texas Aggie Bonfire

Festival Location: College Station, TX, USA

Festival State: Texan Festivals

Festival Type: Bizarre Festivals

By: © Nelson Taylor 2009

At Texas A&M University, the biggest annual event is the Aggie football game versus their rivals, the University of Texas Longhorns. To celebrate the occasion, they build the biggest log bonfire in the nation, a tradition that dates back to 1909. This event made news in 1999 after toppling and killing twelve of the fifty-odd students climbing the stack. At press time, it was undetermined whether or not the burn would continue though chances are highly probable.

Months before the November burn date, some 5,000 students cut hundreds of trees from land donated by owners who need their land cleared, which amounts to the biggest annual waste of trees in America. It takes thousands of man hours, lots of muscle, not to mention the help of a crane to erect the monster in seven levels, what they call stacks. Though Texas A&M set the world bonfire record with their 109'10" tower in 1969, university officials, for safety reasons, now limit its height to 55 feet.

Travis Johnson is a Senior Red Pot, a title given to those who plan, construct and clean up after the event. While Red Pots are plagued all year round by organizing the nitty gritty details, the honor of adding an outhouse to the top of the log pyramid is reserved for them. The outhouse is painted orange and reads "TU Frathouse." Red Pots also get to light the fire. Johnson says, "We use a mixture of gas and diesel and it's sprayed on by the hundreds of gallons by a firetruck. Then we get to throw the torches. It's lights up pretty fast."

It goes without saying that liquored-up Longhorns have attempted to sabotage the bonfire many times throughout its long history. Some of the more creative attempts happened in 1933 and 1948, when they tried to ignite the bonfire early by dropping firebombs from planes. And in 1956, they even tried explosives. But the only people ever successful at tumbling the stack before the bonfire has been the Aggies themselves. Go figure. In 1994, just a week before the burning, the entire stack fell like Lincoln Logs.

The burning itself is mayhem, a drunkfest to say the least. But long after the party has ended, the bonfire continues to burn and smolder. Many of the students return once it has cooled to collect a memory. Johnson says, "Three weeks later I went to collect some ashes from the burn site, but it was still so hot it melted my spoon." Then Johnson tells me about his father, who was part of the crew who erected the world record stack in 1969. "When he came back from Christmas break, that thing was still burning. The whole thing and the history are incredible."