The hat is important!
In a state of towering oil derricks and spidery drill platforms people do a double-take when they drive by the civic center in the Texas town of Paris. It's not just that dark metal replica Eiffel Tower -- it's the fact that it is adorned with a giant cowboy hat.
But then what would you have done? Paris! And Texas.
Both Paris of Texas and Paris of Tennessee dedicated their Eiffel Tower replicas in 1993: Tennessee's was built at Christian Brothers University (in Memphis) and was 60 feet tall, Texas's was built by a local iron worker's union and was 65 feet tall. But Tennessee added another ten feet -- looking down on Texas at 70 feet tall.
Paris, Texas, was left in the dust. So in 1998 town boosters added a large red cowboy hat to the tip of the tower, tilted to push a few extra feet into the lower atmosphere.
Turns out the cowboy hat idea came just in time. The following year, in 1999, Las Vegas humbled all the little Paris's when it erected a 540-foot-tall Eiffel Tower replica along the Strip. At half the height of the original (which is 984 feet tall), this Eiffel Tower is nearly ten times taller than the other replicas. But no hat.
