THE PRESIDENT’S FAVORITE BROTHEL
President Lyndon Baines Johnson would ‘relieve the stress’ of his job by sleeping with prostitutes - including one favorite whom he would introduce as a ‘family friend’ - it has emerged.
In the mid-1960s Johnson, a Texan, would have girls from the infamous ‘Chicken Ranch’ brothel brought over to him to relieve ‘an extremely stressful time’, the NY Post reported.
‘The guy had so much on his mind and on his plate,’ said ‘Penny,’ one of Johnson’s favorites. ‘He just needed to break away from everything... you know what I’m saying?’the revelations come from ‘Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of The Best Little Whorehouse’ by Jayme Lynn Blaschke, available now.
Edna Milton, the guntoting, tough-talking madam who ran the chicken house, was first contacted about LBJ by a regular customer who had become one of the President’s aides.
The aide asked if they had a discreet car - no convertibles! - because ‘someone’s wanting to come out there, but they don’t want to go in their own car.’ In the end, however, Johnson - who was married at the time decided to bring the girls to him.
Penny, a worker at The Chicken Ranch in La Grange from 19661969, said that she was approached by a local sheriff who said the President was in town.
‘Would you like to meet him?’ the cop asked. ‘He likes brunettes.’penny, who had a ‘clean-cut look’ according to Blaschke, would be spirited away to a series of ranches between Austin and La Grange.
There she would be introduced as a friend of Johnson’s family until the pair could find somewhere more secluded. She visited him on as many as eight occasions.
The Chicken Ranch price for the ‘Aggie Special’ - an unlimited period of time with one of the girls - was just $8 for almost 100 years, going up to $20 in 1970.
The origins of the Chicken Ranch - and its name - are unknown, but plenty of stories swirl about the venue, which is said to have opened in the 1840s. According to one story, a covered wagon train broke down in La Grange, and the girls on the train sold their bodies to earn money - eventually setting up a permanent base. As for the name, that either comes from one of the madams putting chickens outside to provide a cover story for law enforcement, or a period in the Great Depression when it accepted chickens as payment.