The Birthplace of Rebekah Baines Johnson
McKinney, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Joseph Wilson Baines (1846-1906), son of minister editor-Baylor University President George W. Baines, settled in Collin county in 1867. He taught school and in 1869 married Ruth Huffman, daughter of a physician of the Peters Colony. Baines read law under ex-governor James W. Throckmorton, began his practice, edited the McKinney "Advocate", and helped organize and build the city's first Baptist church. He and his wife lived at this site when their child Rebekah was born. Baines served 1883 to 1887 as Texas Secretary of State, later practiced law in Blanco and Fredericksburg, and was a legislator in 1903-1904. Rebekah Baines (1881-1958) studied at Baylor College in Belton and became a teacher and journalist. In 1907 she married Sam Early Johnson, Jr. (1877-1937), a rancher and former schoolteacher who also served in the Texas Legislature from 1905 through 1908 and from 1917 through 1923. The couple continued to ranch in the Hill Country, published the Johnson City "Record-Courier", and were parents of five children. Their eldest, Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973), after a long career in the national Congress, served as the 36th president of the United States. (1976)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This McKinney site was home to Joseph Wilson Baines, a teacher, lawyer, newspaper editor, and Texas Secretary of State, when his daughter Rebekah was born in 1881. Rebekah studied at Baylor, became a teacher and journalist, and in 1907 married rancher and legislator Sam Early Johnson, Jr. Their eldest child, Lyndon Baines Johnson, rose through Congress to become the 36th president of the United States.
Why it matters
The birthplace links three generations of a Texas public-service family and marks the maternal roots of a president who reshaped 20th-century America through civil rights and the Great Society.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Rebekah Baines Johnson
- · Joseph Wilson Baines
- · Sam Early Johnson Jr.
- · Lyndon Baines Johnson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fanny Finch Elementary School
McKinney, TX
Laura Frances "Fanny" Finch taught at McKinney's Collegiate Institute before marrying Henry Finch, a future legislator and mayor, in 1890. In 1917 she became one of the first women in Texas to serve on a school board, and she helped found the city's early literary and garden clubs. A recognized community leader, she was honored when this school was named for her in 1924.
Lovejoy School
Allen, TX
Lovejoy School was born in 1917 when the Forest Grove and Lick Springs districts merged, taking their name from Mrs. J.L. Lovejoy, a local clubwoman who championed education across the area. Grades one through nine met in a four-room "Little Red Schoolhouse" for decades. When new families poured into the rural district in the 1960s, the school expanded to keep pace with its swelling enrollment.
Alla School
Celina, TX
When Dr. Moses Hubbard and his wife Mary Jane found local schooling inadequate, they educated their daughter Alla at home and then sent her to a Missouri institute, where she earned a literature degree in 1880. After Alla's early death, her grieving parents founded a school in her memory in 1895, financing it entirely themselves. Opening in 1896 with 108 pupils, Alla School charged no tuition and set no age limit at a time when free public education had little support in Texas.
Dulaney House
McKinney, TX
Built in 1916 by Dallas banker John Field for his sister, this McKinney home stayed in the Dulaney family for more than half a century. Her son Joseph Field Dulaney, a local philanthropist, lived here until 1968 and donated the land across the street for the town's public library. With its Prairie School influences and wraparound veranda, the house reflects the comfortable domestic architecture of early-20th-century Texas.