If you thought Neutral Ground was a coffee shop in The Heights or Austin, you don't know your Texas history.

As its name might imply, the historical Neutral Ground grew out of an international disagreement over a border. According to "Texas Day by Day," an online service of the Texas State Historical Association, the United States and Spain had different opinions on where to draw the boundary between Texas and Louisiana after the United States bought the Louisiana territory in 1803.

The disagreement grew hotter until Nov. 5, 1806, when U.S. and Spanish military commanders signed an agreement declaring the disputed territory to be "neutral ground."

Its only description was a general statement placing the neutral territory between Arroyo Hondo on the east and the Sabine River on the west. In 1821, the Adams-Onis Treaty allocated the land to the United States.

Since then the two states have engaged in a more-or-less running battle for claim to fame, or in some cases, infamy.

Take hurricanes, for instance. Texas holds title to the deadliest -- the Galveston hurricane of 1900, which claimed about 6,000 lives -- while Louisiana has Katrina, the most costly in terms of dollars, with an estimated price tag of $149 billion.

SLIDESHOW: See how else the two states stack up in our battle of the states above.