Introduction

Johnson Library

National Historic Site

PBS

White House

CIA

History Home

Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Site

The National Park Service maintains the 1500 acre Johnson property near Stonewall, Texas. This site was part of the Johnson Ranch and donated by the Johnson family. The National Park website implicitly implies the worthiness of LBJ as a national figure.

Johnson stipulated that the LBJ Ranch remain a working ranch, and not a "sterile relic of the past." The National Park Service maintains a herd of Hereford cattle and manages the ranch as a living demonstration of ranching the LBJ way.

The site is aimed at potential visitors to the ranch. There is information about visiting the ranch, arranging field trips for students, about wild flowers in the area, sections for the press, children and teachers, a discussion of Johnson clothing and a gift shop.

There is a fairly interesting sketch about LBJ as a rancher. Johnson created a 2,700 acre ranch, with 400 head of registered Hereford cattle. The site attempts to portray LBJ as an environmentalist and conservationist. As the site notes: 'Johnson signed into law almost 300 bills dealing with environmental protection and other resource conservation issues. At the LBJ Ranch, he used new ranching practices that demonstrated these stewardship concepts and increased the revenue potential of the ranch.' Johnson is termed ‘last of the frontier presidents’ implying he is of the same mettle as Lincoln and Andrew Jackson.

The site leaves much to be desired from the historian's point of view unless they are specifically interested in Johnson’s early life. For even amateur historians and students, the information about Johnson’s activities beyond the ranch is minimal. There are no source documents and no biographical sketch. There is a family tree and pictures of early residences of the Johnson family.

The site is neatly designed and relatively easy to navigate. The part of the site called National and Cultural Treasures where there might be historical information has a lot of unconnected links. Each page has text links at the bottom as well as buttons at top. One feature is the Press Kit section which has images and information about the Park. The section for children has a nice on-line game sheet.

Links listed for your convenience.

Main site: http://www.nps.gov/lyjo/Home.htm
Wildflowers: http://www.nps.gov/lyjo/Wildflowers.htm
Teachers: http://www.nps.gov/lyjo/EducMain.htm
Rancher: http://www.nps.gov/lyjo/range.htm
Treasures: http://www.nps.gov/lyjo/TreasuresMain.htm
Press Kit http://www.nps.gov/lyjo/presskit.htm
Game sheet: http://www.nps.gov/lyjo/EdKidActivity.htm
Clothing: http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/conservation/john1.htm

The National Park Service also has a write-up about the Historic site on their own web site http://www.nps.gov/lyjo/