Rediscover LBJ’s history and heritage in Central Texas.
JOHNSON CITY — The park ranger at Lyndon B. Johnson’s boyhood home is herding our little group out of LBJ’s bedroom and on toward the “sleeping porch,” but my son is lagging behind, studying the period furnishings with more interest than you’d expect they’d inspire in an 11-year-old.
“So, this is the window?” he asks, referencing a story the ranger had just told — that young LBJ would sneak out of bed, climb out the window and crawl under the house on evenings that his legislator father had friends visiting in the parlor, so that he could eavesdrop on their political wheeling and dealing. I nod, he grins, and he hustles to catch up with our tour.
Only later did he explain what had struck him: He had never thought about any president ever being a kid, much less a kid who would break the rules. In that modest house, lacking touch screens or animatronic exhibits, history had come to life.
Which was what I’d vaguely hoped for when planning this trip in late November. My son’s sixth-grade class had just spent a week immersed in the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination but had spent little time on the man who succeeded him — despite the fact that LBJ was one of only two U.S. presidents born in Texas. (Bonus points if you knew the other was Dwight Eisenhower, who, though associated most closely with Kansas, was actually born in Denison.)
And LBJ wasn’t just born in Texas — he grew up here, campaigned here, even spent much of his presidency governing here, from the ranch house in Stonewall dubbed the Texas White House. Today, the most important sites in his life, plus his presidential library and museum, are well-preserved and open to visitors, all within a roughly 60-mile swath of Central Texas, ready to be discovered by a new generation.
“I think that now that the (JFK 50th anniversary) observances have concluded, the eyes of historians will turn back to LBJ, and we’re starting to see an increase in interest in him,” says Russ Whitlock, superintendent at the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Johnson City. The park is commemorating his presidency with a series of special exhibits over the next seven years. “When people come here, see the boyhood home, go through the exhibits, they often experience kind of this ‘a-ha’ moment — ‘I had no idea he did so much.’ ”
A weekend is just about the perfect amount of time for this LBJ itinerary. If you start early enough the first day, you can even do it with just one overnight stay.
Friday night: Drive to the Hill Country and check into your hotel. The most authentic choice: the Driskill (604 Brazos, Austin; driskillhotel. com). The historic downtown hotel was the site of LBJ and Lady Bird’s first date in 1934. (They met for breakfast in the dining room; you can reserve the booth where they ate.)
It’s also where LBJ waited out the results for his 1948 Senate race, his 1960 VP race and his 1964 presidential contest. Back in the day, LBJ kept an apartment at the hotel, which has since been turned into the Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson Suite, decorated in a Lone Star and bluebonnet motif. If you’ve got the scratch — the suite starts from about $799 per night — it’s available, too. Saturday: Your full day of touring should start in Johnson City, about an hour west of Austin. At the visitor’s center for the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park (nps.gov/lyjo/index.htm), view a timeline, highlighted by photos, campaign memorabilia and videos.
Soon, the center will unveil a new exhibit commemorating the legislation LBJ passed in 1965, authorizing broad federal aid for education; new exhibits will continue annually.
To see LBJ’s boyhood home, you must take a free guided tour, offered every half-hour, with a break for lunch. Before you leave, hike 10 minutes into the woods to see Johnson
Settlement, the log cabin compound representing where LBJ’s grandfather and greatuncle settled and launched a cattle business in the 1860s. (Johnson City was named in honor of that uncle.)
Grab lunch in Johnson City, then drive 15 or so
miles west to the Lyndon B. Johnson State Park and
Historic Site (199 Park Road 52, Stonewall; tpwd.state. tx.us/state-parks/lyndonb-johnson). Here, stop by another visitors center, where you’ll get a free pass for your driving tour of his ranch, which is part of the national park system; you also can purchase tickets to tour the Texas White House, at roughly the two-thirds point of the driving tour.
The state park also houses the Sauer-Beckmann Living History Farm, a GermanAmerican homestead restored to its 1918 heyday. Costumed interpreters tend the pigs and chickens, can and cook in the rustic kitchen, and perform other tasks that show what rural Texas life was like during LBJ’s boyhood.
Saturday night: Head back to Austin or, alternately, spend the night in one of the waterfront communities near Lake LBJ, such as Marble Falls. (The former Lake Granite Shoals was renamed Lake Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, to honor his early work on establishing rural electrification in Texas, which resulted in the construction of the Central Texas lakes.)
Sunday: Eat an early lunch at what, by many accounts, was LBJ’s favorite Austin restaurant, Matt’s Famous El
Rancho (2613 S. Lamar, Austin; mattselrancho.com). In a Foodways Texas oral history project last year, co-founder
Janie Martinez reminisced how LBJ would enter through the back door and sneak through the kitchen, Secret Service agents in tow, to get his Mexican food fix. Today, the restaurant has relocated to a sprawling complex on South Lamar. However, you can still get the same old-school specialties, such as the chile relleno sprinkled with raisins, that LBJ used to have flown to the White House.
Next, visit the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower
Center (4801 La Crosse, Austin; wildflower.org), which celebrates her legacy of preserving wildflowers and protecting the environment. (In her typical humble style, the first lady launched the project in 1982 with actress Helen Hayes, because “she said, ‘I need somebody famous involved with this if I want to get people to pay attention,’” a park volunteer told us.)
The park is worth a stop even in cold months; something’s always blooming in the 279 acres of gardens and trails, and there are interactive exhibits in the visitors center and rotating natureinspired art exhibits in the gallery. Admission fee is $9, $7 seniors and students, $3 kids under 12.
Sunday afternoon: Finish
your tour at the LBJ Presi
dential Library (2313 Red River, Austin; lbjlibrary.org). If you still have questions about LBJ’s life and accomplishments, you’ll surely find the answers here, via videos, interactive displays that feature actual phone recordings of the president, and a replica of the Oval Office as it looked in LBJ’s time.