Lyndon Baines Johnson
Stonewall, Gillespie County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The 36th President of the United States of America As a 12-year-old student attended classes of the 8th grade here at the old Stonewall school from October 1920 to June 1921.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
As a twelve-year-old, the future 36th President attended eighth-grade classes at the old Stonewall school from October 1920 to June 1921. The one-year stint places young Lyndon Baines Johnson in the small Hill Country schoolhouses that shaped his early years before his rise through Texas and national politics.
Why it matters
Johnson's rural schooling foreshadowed his lifelong conviction that education could lift ordinary Americans, later expressed in his Great Society reforms.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Lyndon Baines Johnson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Major Israel M. Nunez
Stonewall, TX
A Civil War veteran turned stage-line operator, Israel M. Nunez founded the community of Stonewall in 1870 and named it in tribute to Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. Raising a family of nine south of town, Nunez helped anchor the settlement by donating land in 1886 for Stonewall School No. 18. His life traces the arc of a defeated Confederacy rebuilding itself in the Texas Hill Country.
Lower South Grape Creek School
Stonewall, TX
Area settlers built a log schoolhouse along South Grape Creek in 1871, first as part of the Luckenbach precinct and, after 1889, as its own District No. 21. In 1901 the log building gave way to this stuccoed limestone structure with an open plan and a bell tower capped by a pyramidal roof—typical of early-1900s rural schools in the Texas Hill Country. The school served the community until it closed in 1960 and merged with Fredericksburg.
Williams Creek School
Stonewall vicinity, TX
The Williams Creek School—also called the Albert School—began around 1890 to serve the rural Albert community, moving into a stone building in 1897 and growing to two rooms by 1922, its dogtrot and bell tower marking a classic Texas country schoolhouse. For one year a young Lyndon Baines Johnson, an area native, was among its pupils. After merging with Stonewall in 1950, the building lived on as a community meeting hall.
Luckenbach School
Luckenbach, TX
In 1855 pioneer settler Peter Pehl deeded two acres here for a schoolhouse to serve the Luckenbach district, and Herman Toepperwein taught the first classes in a log building. That structure served until 1905, when the present native-limestone schoolhouse was completed. The Luckenbach School kept its doors open until 1964, when it consolidated with the Fredericksburg district.