LBJ Childhood Home and Ranch

Hauenstein leadership fellows drove up into the Texas Hill Country to spend the day touring Lyndon Johnson's boyhood home (left) and ranch. The boyhood home is in Johnson City, and the ranch is near Stonewall. Both sites are administered by the National Park Service. The boyhood home was built in

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Brian Flanagan, Melissa Ware, and Gleaves Whitney toured the home Lyndon Johnson's family moved into when LBJ was five years old. He lived mostly in this house until he married Lady Bird at age 26. LBJ returned to this porch during the first week of March 1937 to announce his

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At the front of the house, opposite the porch, Brian and Melissa sit where the five Johnson children (and sometimes neighborhood kids) used to learn about oratory, debate, and civic participation from their schoolteacher mother, Rebekah Baines Johnson. Education was her passion -- she was one of the few college

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Young Lyndon learned about politics mostly from his father, Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr. This room, the parents' bedroom, doubled as the place where men would come and meet with Sam, who was a state representative for 12 years. Lyndon learned early about the rough and tumble of representative government by

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This bookcase preserves the books Lyndon was exposed to as a child. Among other works, it contains the plays of Shakespeare and a multi-volume set about Jefferson. It also has Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography.

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This gate along the Pedernales River marks the old entrance to the LBJ Ranch. Across the river is the ranch house that served as the Western White House during the Johnson administration. In the Texas Hill County, "Pedernales" is pronounced "perd-n-alice." It is Spanish for hard or flinty rocks.

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This one-room schoolhouse near Stonewall is where four-year-old Lyndon learned to read. As president 53 years later, LBJ came back to the schoolhouse to sign the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that he had lobbied for. His teacher was at the signing ceremony. In all, President Johnson signed more than

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In this house near Stonewall, on August 27, 1908, the first child was born to Sam and Rebekah Johnson. For several weeks the parents couldn't decide what to name the boy -- they called him "Baby." Eventually they named him Lyndon Baines.

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The Johnson family cemetery on the ranch near Stonewall. The Pedernales River flows gently in the background. Lyndon Baines Johnson died on January 23, 1973, and his body was laid to rest on January 25.

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The Western White House is where LBJ could relax and get his mind off the pressing issues the nation faced during his presidency (1963-69). But it was also the place where he invited many of his advisors and conducted much business. Lady Bird Johnson divides her time between Austin and

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Lyndon Johnson loved to drive around the ranch in his white Lincoln Continental.

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LBJ liked to take guests around the ranch in this special vehicle, which is amphibious -- but they didn't know that. A practical jokester, he would speed up as he approached water, yelling, "My breaks are out! My breaks are out!" He watched a good number of people panic.

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