What is the origin of this, and who’s messing with Texas anyway? Oklahoma?
Or is it simple paranoia?
I googled the saying and got 43,000 hits, most trying to sell me something.
Peace,
mangeorge
I thought it came from an anti-litter campaign that the state of Texas started in the 1970s.
Hmmm. Could be, but they say “with”, not “up”.
I grew up in Texas. The first I heard of it was with the anti-littering campaign. I don’t know when it started, but my first memories of it are from the mid 80s.
http://www.dontmesswithtexas.org/
My memory serves me well. The campaign started it 1986. (See the “About Us” link). I don’t know if the phrase was in wide usage before that; I do remember that the campaign took off when it first hit the airwaves though. Seemed as though everybody had a Don’t Mess With Texas bumper sticker and such.
Yes, it originally comes from an ad campaign slogan started by the Texas Department of Transportation to clean up Texas highways (at the time some of the worst in the nation). The ads featured Texas celebs like Stevie Ray, the slogan was cocky and catchy, and it caught on. Litter on Texas highways supposedly decreased significantly.
Here is some background on the anti-litter campaign by the Texas Department of Transportation. It turns out that it started in the 1980s.
http://www.legalpr.com/6-14-04_Ted_Stevenson_McKool_Texas_Lawyer.html
Pulled this up with a google search of " ‘don’t mess with texas’ + origin"
Whoa. Quadruple post.
All of which proves the point of the slogan…
It’s pretty cool – you can watch all of their commercials back from 1986. Ahhh…memories. SRV, Willie, Mike Scott and his “split finger trashball.”
I guess that’s it, then. Sounds like something Ladybird Johnson would be involved in.
I expected it to mean something more, well, hairy-chested. There’s a guy at work with the poster on his office door. I was afraid to ask him. 
IIRC, the DoT claimed a litter reduction of about half from the campaign. If true, that’s not bad at all!
Still, though, why not “Don’t Mess Up Texas”?
While “Don’t Mess Up Texas” may be more technically accurate as to what the TxDOT would like for you to do, it lacks panache and swagger, which Texas always has a thing for.
I wouldn’t say just “technically” accurate, but out of context one would be unlikely to associate it with litter cleanup. Unless it was directed at tourists. Swagger is right. Y’all do like to swagger.
I was thinking that maybe the saying was borrowed from back in the Sam Houston days.
While I was in Dallas for a seminar I remarked that one of the teachers who liked to tell tall stories was “kinda funny”. Come to find out that can mean the same as “ain’t right”. 
Actually, the Texas Department of Transportation has a trademark on the slogan and have decided in the last year or so to start enforcing it by stopping unauthorized T-shirts and so forth. It’s been in the news off and on where I could hear about it all the way in Yankee country.
Well, that’s kinda ironic for an anti-litter campaign!
They must have had it all along. I don’t think you can trademark something already in generak use. In fact, I think that even if you have a trademark, once you let it into widespread use you can lose your right.
Of course they do have whats-his-name (the pres.) living back there. You know, back east, in Texas.