Birders have an expression for a small bird that flies away before you can identify it: an LBJ, a little brown job. Last week we visited LBJ National Historical Park, and though I did see a life bird who flew away just as I was focusing on it, the park is named for the 36th president of the United States. The park headquarters are in Johnson City, Texas which was named after Lyndon Baines Johnson’s ancestors. He was born about 14 miles west on the Pedernales River, but his parents move to the “city” when he was five. His boyhood home is part of the Park. An extraordinary home built for the Texas heat seems to have doors opening to the outside in every room in the house. There are two screened in back porches, one for sleeping in which reminded me of the house in Florida I moved into when I was five and had a screened porch where I’d sometimes sleep in the summer heat. The main front porch was for his mother, but the one shown in the image below was his father’s and the door opened to Lyndon and his brother’s bedroom. His father was in the Texas House of Representatives and would have frequent meetings on this porch. LBJ started developing his mastery of politics by listening in to the conversations on this very porch.
Lyndon Baines Johnson boyhood home, Johnson City, TX
LBJ and Lady Bird donated this home and a large portion of their ranch to the National Park Service with a stipulation that there never be an entrance fee, and that the ranch always continue to be a working ranch. However, to get to the National Park site, you need to stop at the surrounding Texas State Park and get a permit to enter.
LBJ ranch and Hereford cattle
After Johnson’s aunt “bought the ranch,” he bought the ranch. The land included the house where he was born, and, right next to this sign, the one room school he attended for a few months before his parents moved to Johnson City. Johnson returned to the school on April 11, 1965 to sign the Elementary and Secondary Education Act sitting next to his first teacher and using a desk from the school. The desk is on display in the visitor center. ESEA has been reauthorized many times to continue federal funding of public education, though it was renamed the “No Child Left Behind Act” by George W. Bush and Betsy DeVos when they attempted to use the law to damage public education and encourage private schools. Johnson paused his college education to teach for one year at the segregated school for Mexican-Americans in Cotulla, Texas. The experience had a profound effect on his life-long commitment to education and racial justice. To compare to the lack of our national government to pass any legislation now, some of the education bills Johnson pushed for and signed include: the Higher Education Act, Vocational Education Act, Manpower Development and Training Act, Library Services and Construction Act, Indian Vocation Training Act, Cold War GI Bill, Head Start, Education Profession Development Act, Public Broadcasting, Upward Bound, The Teacher Corps and the Adult Education Act.
Desk where LBJ signed ESEA
LBJ spent much of his presidency at the Texas White House. The ranch house had already been expanded by Johnson, but after he became president Lady Bird insisted that new bedrooms be added for each of them so she would not wake up to find Secret Service agents hovering over her. The pool had been added in 1955 after the doctor ordered LBJ to exercise more after a heart attack nearly killed him. However, Johnson just got a long telephone cord so he could sit in the pool and continue to use one of his main political tools. The house has been closed for tours since August when a branch from the 300 year old Live Oak tree fell on the front lawn, and some structural defects were found. The dead branch is still on the left edge of this image which is where the oldest part of the house is.
Texas White House
Changes to the ranch included lengthening the runway that ended just behind the house. The runway still could not support the weight of Air Force One, so Air Force One Half brought LBJ to the ranch from Austin. In addition to the plane, Johnson’s many cars and even golf carts are on display. The old airplane hanger that was also used to screen movies and host parties is now part of the visitor center.
Air Force One Half
Because he often had more visitors then could stay in the house, Johnson had his boyhood home reconstructed to look exactly as it had when he was born there. Robert Caro’s first book of his still uncompleted biography of Johnson, the 1982 The Path to Power, describes the powerful influence growing up in this dogtrot house had on Johnson. LBJ and Lady Bird are buried just a hundred yards away.
Reconstructed LBJ birthplace