Who is the most influential Texan in history?
That’s the question Chron set out to answer with its new Texas 250: Who Shaped Texas? project, a first-of-its-kind ranking of the 250 people the publication says had the greatest impact on the Lone Star State since 1776.
The rankings feature politicians, musicians, athletes, entrepreneurs, military leaders and cultural icons whose legacies helped shape Texas.
The list’s top 10 includes household names such as Beyoncé, Lyndon B. Johnson, Sam Houston and Willie Nelson, with the No. 1 spot revealed when the project launches.
The rankings were compiled after months of research and debate by Chron journalists, who narrowed more than 400 candidates to 250. The staff evaluated each person based on influence, historical importance, name recognition, connection to Texas identity and impact within their field.
Readers also participated in the process through four rounds of voting focused on music, politics, sports and the overall list.
“We wanted to look at Texas,” Chron Executive Editor Wes Wilson said. “In 1776, Texas was a sparsely populated frontier territory in the Spanish Empire. Today, it is home to four of America’s 10 largest cities and has as much cultural cachet as any state in the country.”
Wilson said the project aims to examine who helped transform Texas into what it is today.
Chron Deputy Managing Editor for Texas Lifestyle Timothy Malcolm, who led the project, said one of the biggest challenges was comparing people whose influence came in vastly different fields.
“Unlike some states, the hardest part was not finding 250 Texans who mattered, it was deciding how to compare people who changed the state in completely different ways,” Malcolm said.
The project is designed to spark conversation across Texas, encouraging readers to debate who ranked too high, who ranked too low and who may have been left off the list entirely.
Timothy Malcolm joins KPRC 2
Malcolm will join KPRC 2 live Wednesday morning to discuss how the rankings were created, some of the biggest surprises on the list and why certain Texans rose to the top.