LBJ Ranch

His retreat from Washington, D.C., President Lyndon Baines Johnson would spend a fifth of his two terms at his family’s ranch in the Hill Country west of Austin where he was born, with the press calling his home the Texas White House. The ranch is still a working ranch today, and visitors should watch for Hereford cows as they drive to where American and world history was made.

Born on this ranch in a now restored house in 1908, President Johnson would often return to this ranch along the Pedernales River as his retreat from the grind of politics. He and his staff would also entertain his Cabinet, other politicians, foreign dignitaries, and celebrities here. Owning one of the first Amphicars, he would drive visitors around the ranch to a nearby lake, terrifying them until the car hit the water and would float and maneuver like a boat. Visitors to the ranch would also sign “Friendship Stones,” small wet cement blocks that would dry and preserve their signatures, with Mercury and Apollo astronauts, President Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover, and Charles Schultz among the signatories.

The drive to the ranch starts at the Visitors Center in Stonewall, where a free driving permit and a map can be obtained. On the drive to the Texas White House, visitors can catch a glimpse of whitetail deer and maybe see a bison herd. Reaching the ranch’s boundaries, starting at the one-room Junction School where LBJ started his education (and where he would sign the Elementary and Secondary Education Act with his teacher here, Kate Deadrich Loney), visitors will have to watch for large Hereford cows along the way. Descendants of LBJ’s herd, over 100 head of cattle graze on the ranch. Along the drive are the house where LBJ was born, just yards away from the family cemetery where he and his family are buried.

Reaching the airplane hangar with the Lockheed jet that was LBJ’s Air Force One, visitors can purchase tickets to tour the Texas White House. The President would have staff meetings in lawn chairs underneath a humongous 350-year old tree  that came to be called the Cabinet Oak beside the house. Underneath this oak tree, policy was made, the War on Poverty was planned, and the Vietnam War was strategized. Tours show the Johnsons’ life at the house, including three televisions LBJ would watch simultaneously when the network news was broadcast.

It was to this ranch that LBJ would retire to after his terms were up in 1969. He would pass away here in 1973, and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, would continue to live part-time here until her death in 2007. Now, visitors to the Hill Country can see where American and world history was made, as long they watch their step.