J. W. and Ruth Baines House
Fredericksburg, Gillespie County, Texas
Marker Inscription
J.W. and Ruth Baines House Joseph W. and Ruth (Huffman) Baines, maternal grandparents of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, built their home here in 1904, following Joseph's service in the Civil War and a career as a journalist, Texas Secretary of State, legislator and attorney. The couple used prefabricated cement blocks, made locally by Hugo and Henry Basse, and known as Basse Blocks, on the exterior of the home. Other features include a gabled dormer with paired windows above the entryway, jigsawn fretwork and turned columns. The widowed Ruth sold the home in 1907, the same year daughter Rebekah wed Sam Johnson. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2002
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Joseph W. Baines and his wife Ruth built this home in 1904 after a career that spanned Civil War service, journalism, and posts as Texas Secretary of State, legislator, and attorney. They faced the exterior with locally made "Basse Blocks" of prefabricated cement and dressed it with a gabled dormer, jigsawn fretwork, and turned columns. Ruth sold the house in 1907, the same year her daughter Rebekah married Sam Johnson—a union that would produce President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Why it matters
As the home of LBJ's maternal grandparents, it roots one of America's most consequential presidents in the Texas Hill Country and the frontier statesmen who shaped his family.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Fredericksburg was founded in 1846 by German immigrants pushing west from the Texas coast into the Hill Country. By the turn of the twentieth century it was a settled, prosperous town, known for its solid stone and timber buildings and its strong German character, and the Hill Country around it was ranch and farm land.
The early 1900s were a time of new building materials and new ideas about the American home. Hollow concrete blocks, made in molds and often shaped to look like cut stone, became popular across the country as a cheap, durable, fire-resistant choice. Local makers set up shop in towns everywhere, and Fredericksburg had its own.
The house also stands where two eras meet. Joseph Baines belonged to the generation that fought in the Civil War and then rebuilt Texas government afterward. His grandson, born only a few years after this house went up, would become president in the 1960s and reshape American public life.
People & events
Joseph W. Baines packed a lot into one life. He served in the Civil War, then worked as a journalist, became Texas Secretary of State, served in the legislature, and practiced law. He belonged to the class of educated, civic-minded Texans who led the state in the decades after the war. In 1904, he and his wife, Ruth Huffman Baines, built this home in Fredericksburg.
They made a practical, up-to-date choice for the exterior: Basse Blocks, prefabricated cement blocks made right in town by Hugo and Henry Basse. With them came the decorative touches popular at the time, including a gabled dormer with paired windows over the entry, jigsawn fretwork, and turned columns. The result joined local craftsmanship with modern materials.
The family did not stay long. By 1907 Ruth was a widow, and that year she sold the house. In the same year, her daughter Rebekah married Sam Johnson. A year later, in 1908, their son Lyndon was born in the Hill Country. He carried his mother's family name as his middle name and went on to become the thirty-sixth president of the United States.
Its place in the American story
This house is part of the family story of Lyndon Baines Johnson, one of the most consequential presidents of the twentieth century. LBJ often spoke of his Hill Country roots, and the Baines side of his family came with a tradition of public service, journalism, and law that his mother passed down to him.
Johnson's presidency produced landmark civil rights laws, Medicare and Medicaid, and federal aid to education, along with the deeply divisive escalation of the Vietnam War. Understanding where he came from, including his grandparents' generation of Texas lawyers and officeholders, helps explain the political world he grew up in.
The building also shows a national architectural trend. Concrete block houses spread across America in the early 1900s as manufacturing reached small towns. The Basse Blocks here show how a national innovation took on a local maker and a local look.
If you visit
The house is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, and from the street you can see the details the marker describes. Look for the cement blocks, made to suggest stone, and then pick out the gabled dormer with its paired windows, the jigsawn fretwork, and the turned columns on the porch.
If it is a private residence, view it respectfully from the street. Fredericksburg is easy to explore on foot, and its historic district is full of buildings that show the town's German heritage alongside later styles like this one.
This stop fits naturally into an LBJ road trip through the Hill Country. Johnson's boyhood home in Johnson City and the LBJ Ranch area near Stonewall are both within a short drive, so you can follow the family from grandparents to president in a single day.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Joseph W. Baines
- · Ruth Huffman Baines
- · Rebekah Baines Johnson
- · Sam Johnson
- · Lyndon Baines Johnson
Themes & tags
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From Fredericksburg's founding in 1846, Market Square—Marktplatz to the German settlers—stood at the town's center, then still ringed by heavy forest. The octagonal Vereins Kirche rose the next year in the middle of Main Street, serving at once as church, school, meeting hall, and a refuge in case of raids, while a jail and public schoolhouse followed in the 1850s. Rebuilt in the 1930s as a pioneer memorial, the church became the county's first museum and library, and the square remains the community's gathering place.
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When Gillespie County's commissioners hired San Antonio architect Alfred Giles to raise this native-limestone courthouse in 1881–82, they were giving civic permanence to a frontier German-Texan community barely a generation old. Its careful symmetry made it the county's second and grandest courthouse, serving justice until 1939 before a gift from the McDermotts restored it as a library and community hall. The stone itself, quarried nearby, ties the building to the Hill Country landscape it governed.