Huntsville, Alabama, is the largest of the many “Huntsvilles” in the United States. By at least 1992, Huntsville (called “Rocket City” because of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center) was nicknamed “Huntsvegas” (Huntsville + Las Vegas) because of the many poker games available in the city.
   
Huntsville, Texas is also sometimes called “Huntsvegas.” A “Viva Huntsvegas” series of concerts started in downtown Huntsville, Texas, in 2004. Students at Huntsville’s Sam Houston State University have used the term “Huntsvegas.” The Huntsville, Texas “Wikipedia” page lists “Huntsvegas” as the city’s nickname, but it’s not an official nickname and has been infrequently used in the Texas city.
     
     
Wikipedia: Huntsville, Texas
Huntsville is a city in and the county seat of Walker County, Texas, United States. The population was 35,078 at the 2000 census. It is the center of the Huntsville micropolitan area.
 
Huntsville is located in the East Texas Piney Woods on the Interstate 45 corridor between Houston and Dallas. Huntsville is home to Sam Houston State University, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Huntsville State Park, the HEARTS Veterans Museum of Texas, and the Texas Prison Museum. It also served as the residence of Sam Houston (the noted Texas general, elected leader, and statesman), who is recognized in Huntsville by the Sam Houston Memorial Museum and also by an enormous statue on Interstate 45.
 
Huntsville is the headquarters of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (the only state agency with headquarters outside of Austin). The Huntsville Prison, also known as the “Walls Unit” due to the large, imposing walls surrounding the facility, houses the state’s execution chamber. (Due to escapes from the prison, the male death row was relocated to the Polunsky Unit near Livingston, Texas; the female death row is located at the Mountain View Unit near Gatesville, Texas.)
 
In reference to its prison, “Huntsville” is the title and subject of a country music song by Merle Haggard, on the album, Someday We’ll Look Back.
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Nickname: Huntsvegas
 
Wikipedia: Sam Houston State University
Sam Houston State University, (known as SHSU and Sam, for short) founded in 1879, is a public university located in Huntsville, Texas. It is one of the oldest purpose-built institutions for the instruction of teachers west of the Mississippi River and the first such institution of its type in the State of Texas and the southwestern United States. It is named for one of Texas’ founding fathers, Sam Houston, who made his home in the city. The university is part of the Texas State University System and is a comprehensive, doctoral granting university enrolling approximately 16,000 undergraduate and graduate students. 
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Huntsville is sometimes referred to as “Huntsvegas” by attending students and many T-shirts from various social events bear the same nickname.
     
Wikipedia: Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville is a city in Madison County in the U.S. state of Alabama, and the county seat of Madison County. Huntsville is the largest city in northern Alabama in a region of a half-million people, with the city proper having 168,132 residents (2006 estimate). Started with a single cabin in 1805, the city was incorporated six years later as Twickenham. However, it was renamed “Huntsville” (after first settler John Hunt) during the War of 1812, and has grown across nearby hills and along the Tennessee River, adding textile mills, then munitions factories, to become a major city, hosting the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and Redstone Arsenal.
 
Huntsville is the largest core city of the four-county large Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area.
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Nickname: “Rocket City”
 
Urban Dictionary
huntsvegas
Alternate name for Huntsville, Alabama. Called this because all people do is get crunk and play poker.
I’m heading out to Huntsvegas to crash a party.
by flotsam Jul 14, 2005
 
huntsvegas
A dumb word coined by the inhabitants of Huntsville, Alabama.
Wow, Huntsvegas is lame.
by Joey Joe Junior Sep 5, 2006
 
Google Groups: rec.music.misc
Newsgroups: alt.music.alternative, rec.music.misc
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Teddie James)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 14:23:23 GMT
Local: Fri, Aug 14 1992 10:23 am
Subject: Luna (was Re: Feelies info)
 
Any idea where I can pick up a copy of this magazine?  I’m almost certain that I can’t find it here in conservative HuntsVegas.
 
TEDDIE JAMES
Intergraph Corporation
Huntsville, AL
 
The Houstonian (Sam Houston State University)
‘Viva Huntsvegas’
Issue date: 10/7/04 Section: Huntsville
There will be an incentive for students to remain in the Huntsville area this Friday night in the form of Viva Huntsvegas. The event is a series of concerts hosted all around the square in downtown Huntsville beginning at 9 p.m., designed by Main Street to foster economic growth in the area.
 
The Houstonian (Sam Houston State University)
‘Viva Huntsvegas!’
Student’s theme picked for Homecoming ‘05
K. Jakubowski
Issue date: 4/26/05 Section: Campus News
The winner of next fall’s Homecoming theme contest is “Viva Huntsvegas . . . Bearkat Style!”
 
Assistant Director for Development Cindy Truax said, “It ended up that there were five entries that contained the word ‘Huntsvegas,’ so we took the five entries that contained the word and conducted a drawing to determine the winner.”
   
Huntsville-Madison-Decatur area—City-Data Forum
zenjenn
07-27-2007, 11:38 AM
Why do some people refer to Huntsville as “Huntsvegas”?
I don’t get it.
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rnc76
07-27-2007, 01:34 PM
I’ve heard Nashvegas also for Nashville too. I think they are poking fun at the entertainment and nightlife scene by comparing it to Las Vegas, when obviously there is no comparison.