Lyndon Baines Johnson
Stonewall, Gillespie County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The 36th President of the United States was born here on August 27, 1908; son of a state legislator (1905-1917), Sam Ealy Johnson, Jr., and Rebekah Baines Johnson, a teacher. The house was built in 1906 with the help of neighbors. The Johnsons and Bainesses - early settlers - were ministers, Indian fighters, newspapermen, college professors, ranchers. Original house burned, and was rebuilt by the President. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On this Hill Country farmstead near the Pedernales River, Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, in a modest house his neighbors had helped raise two years earlier. He came from hardy Texas stock—Johnsons and Baineses who had been ministers, teachers, ranchers, and frontier settlers, including his father, a state legislator. Johnson went on to become the 36th President, and later rebuilt the original house after it burned.
Why it matters
The birthplace grounds one of the most consequential American presidencies in the rural Texas world that shaped Johnson's politics and his War on Poverty.
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Related people
- · Lyndon Baines Johnson
- · Sam Ealy Johnson, Jr.
- · Rebekah Baines Johnson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Stonewall Community Cemetery
Stonewall, TX
This cemetery first served Millville, a settlement laid out after the Civil War by Israel Nuñez, who ran a nearby stage stop. Though Nuñez set aside the ground early, it was not formally deeded until 1934, and its earliest marked grave dates to 1879. Millville became Stonewall in 1875, and after a pause the cemetery saw burials resume in 1966.
Brodbeck Family Cemetery
Luckenbach, TX
Established in 1870 near Luckenbach in Gillespie County, Brodbeck Family Cemetery lies in the heart of the German Hill Country settled by immigrant families in the mid-nineteenth century. Its designation as a Historic Texas Cemetery honors it as an enduring trace of one of those pioneering families.
Blanco County Trail Drives
Johnson City, TX
From this Blanco County headquarters in the 1870s, brothers J. T. and Sam Ealy Johnson launched thousands of cattle up the trails to Kansas railheads, gathering and processing herds at pens on Williamson's and Deer creeks. Theirs was the largest trail-driving outfit across Blanco and six neighboring counties, sending north herds of 2,500 to 3,000 head each season. Younger brother Sam Ealy Johnson would become grandfather to President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
James Polk Johnson
Johnson City, TX
Georgia-born and raised in DeWitt County, James Polk Johnson served in the Confederate army before joining his uncles in the Blanco County cattle business, which he bought and made his own by 1871. In 1879 he founded a new town on the Pedernales River — Johnson City — and worked to develop it, though his ambition to make it the county seat was not realized until 1891, six years after his death.