FREDERICKSBURG,
TEXAS – Last month, while in the midst of the maelstrom and madness that was
the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, I decided to take a somewhat
presidential escape and participate in a press tour of the Texas Hill Country region,
and follow in the footsteps of the 36th President of the United
States, Lyndon Baines Johnson, or LBJ for short.
Johnson,
who served as president from 1963 to 1969, was known for his hardworking,
bombastic style of leadership, especially when it came to working with the U.S.
Senate and House of Representatives to pass much vital legislation. Although
his presidency will forever be known for being bogged in the quagmire of the
Vietnam War, Johnson’s administration was also known for passing a great
multitude of social legislation as part of his “Great Society” program, such as
the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act, and Head Start.
However,
when the stresses of Washington, D.C. and the White House got to be too much
for him, LBJ would board Air Force One to the Hill Country, in particular, his
ranch in Stonewall, Texas, where he could get some work done, entertain VIPs
and heads of state, and physically and emotionally recharge his batteries in
the much-relaxed atmosphere of the sprawling 2700 acres that made up his ranch.
In fact, he spent a total of 490 days of his administration taking care of the business
of the nation and relaxing at the ranch.
“This is a
special corner of God’s real estate,” Johnson once said about his beloved Texas
home. “It really moulds the character of people.”
In 1972, a
year before his death, LBJ and his wife Lady Bird Johnson donated 600 acres of
the ranch area to the U.S. National Parks Service, as a means to share the
beauty of the Texas Hill Country landscape and the historic places that not
only shaped his life, but also the history of the state of Texas. The end
result was the LBJ State Park and Historic Site and the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park.
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| Inside LBJ's Texas White House office |
This
impressive historical complex, which attracts about 75,000 visitors annually,
is jointly operated by the State of Texas and the U.S. National Parks Service, and
is dedicated to preserving the life and legacy of Lyndon B. Johnson and his
pioneering Texas roots. Through visiting the preserved properties that were
associated with his life, such as his birthplace and boyhood home, the Junction
School one-room schoolhouse where he spent his early school days and the Texas
White House, you get the authentic story of LBJ by literally following in his
footsteps.
To get a
vivid idea of what life was like in LBJ’s Texas world before he embarked on his
political career, check out the Sauer-Beckmann Farm to start your visit. This
farmhouse was actually resided by a family who were the Johnson family’s
neighbours about a century ago. What is so amazing about visiting this
farmhouse is that the people who serve as your guides (all of them volunteers) not
only wear authentic clothing from that period (circa 1916), but they conduct
actual homestead chores and prepare meals using the tools and appliances from
that era, without any modern technological convenience in sight.
As you make
your way along the trail to the Texas White House, you can’t miss the presence
of the many Hereford cows that LBJ raised through his lifetime that still roam
around the property. Make sure to visit the Show Barn facility, which was built
50 years ago. During his presidency, when Johnson hosted many special guests
and heads of state at the ranch, he made it a point to make the Show Barn a
stop on his personal guided tours of the ranch, and showed off the cattle and
show bulls he raised at the barn, to give them the idea of what a typical Texas
ranch looked like, which also helped to soften or change any negative opinions
these visitors might have had of him. Also, the Show Barn is still run as a
functioning cattle ranch, in which
the livestock still sport the distinctive “LBJ” brand on their horns.
Another
stop to make before visiting the Texas White House is LBJ’s personal airplane
hangar, which also serves as the visitor centre and the gift and book shop,
where you can purchase a wide range of books about LBJ and his presidency (including
Robert A. Caro’s monumental four-volume biography of LBJ), replicas of his
famous Stetson hat, and even an LBJ bobble head figurine. For an ideal souvenir
of your visit to the LBJ Ranch, I recommend purchasing a copy of the Lyndon B.
Johnson National Historical Park audio CD/DVD package, which costs only $7. The
audio CD contains detailed descriptions of 18 of the sites that make up the
entire facility (which includes quotes from LBJ himself, along with his
daughters Luci Baines Johnson and Lynda Johnson Robb, as well as the Reverend
Billy Graham and Johnson administration aide Joseph Califano); the DVD contains
39 photographs of the site, as well as a selection of documentary featurettes,
including a 1968 tour of the ranch that was personally conducted by LBJ and
Lady Bird Johnson (and judging by the relaxed tone of voice LBJ uses when he
speaks in this doc, it readily shows how the ranch and the house was such an
important part of his life throughout his 64 years).
The hangar
also has a mini theatre, which shows a 14-minute featurette film about the
story of LBJ and the Texas White House (highly recommended). Also, it stores
the many presidential souvenir items in their original packaging, such as cigarette
lighters, cufflinks and his trademark Stetson hat, that LBJ loved to give to
visitors as gifts, as well as his small private jet plane that he used for his
short flights to the ranch (which he referred to as “Air Force One-Half”).
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| The living room at the Texas White House |
The Texas
White House itself, which was officially opened to the public in 2008, a year
after Lady Bird’s death and to mark the 100th anniversary of LBJ’s
birth, is a testament to the relaxed, laid back way of life the Johnson family
enjoyed during their time there. Compared to the opulent residences of some of
LBJ’s presidential predecessors – such as George Washington’s Mount Vernon and
Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello -- Johnson’s
Texas White House is indeed quite modest-looking, yet no less comfortable. Whether
it be the living room (with LBJ’s trademark three TV sets placed side by side,
so he could watch the newscasts of CBS, NBC and ABC simultaneously and Lady
Bird could watch her favorite TV show “Gunsmoke”, and the table where he liked
to play dominoes), his wood-panelled office, the kitchen (in which the clocks
are fixed at 1 p.m., the exact time on November 22, 1963 when John F. Kennedy
was pronounced dead and Johnson officially became president) or his separate
bedroom (which had a phone console with several phone lines … a similar device
was also installed in the nearby bathroom), the visitor gets the impression
that the Texas White House was not a museum piece, but a place where LBJ really
did call home and was where he can retreat from the crazy world of the
Washington corridors of power, yet not lose sight of his presidential
responsibilities. Visits to the Texas White House are done via guided tours
only (tickets are available for purchase at the airplane hangar visitor
centre); the national park rangers who conduct the tours are excellent and have
a vast knowledge of the world of Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson, and what this
house meant to them.
After
experiencing the life and world of Lyndon B. Johnson and his family by visiting
the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, it gave me an eye-opening glance
at the human side of this controversial president beyond the upheaval of the
60s that made up a great deal of his presidency. I can readily understand why
he wanted to share his home with the rest of the world, which was echoed in the
message that was inscribed on the mat that is placed on the front door of the
Texas White House: “All the World is Welcome Here”.
* * *
For more information about visiting the Lyndon
B. Johnson National Historical Park, go to www.nps.gov/lyjo.
And to find out more about the Texas Hill Country region, in particular the
city of Fredericksburg, and what is has to offer, go to wwwvisitfredericksburgtx.com.
(This article originally appeared in the November 9, 2016 edition of "Wednesday")
