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New park opens to public
On this day in 1969, the Lyndon B. Johnson State Historical Park opened
to the public. The park is a strip of land bounded on the north by the
Pedernales River and on the south by U.S. Highway 290, 1½ miles east of
Stonewall in eastern Gillespie County. It is two miles long and a half
mile wide and comprises 718 acres. It commemorates the life and career
of Lyndon Johnson, whose birthplace and ranch just across the river are
part of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park. The Texas Parks
and Wildlife Department accepted 269 acres along the Pedernales from
various friends of President Johnson in 1967 and added improvements
funded in part by a federal land and water conservation grant. The park
was officially dedicated on August 29, 1970, in a ceremony attended by
Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird. By 1975 the state had expanded the park
to its current size, at a cost of more than $1 million. Besides the
visitors' center, which houses a display of Johnson memorabilia and a
250-seat auditorium, the park includes the Behrens Cabin, built in the
1870s by German immigrant Johannes Behrens and furnished with typical
nineteenth-century furnishings; the Sauer-Beckmann Farmstead, a
historical farm operated as it was in 1918; and a nature trail that runs
through wildlife enclosures with buffalo, white-tailed deer, wild
turkeys, longhorn cattle, and other native fauna. Other facilities at
the park are an outdoor amphitheater, a swimming pool, tennis courts, a
baseball diamond, and a number of picnic areas. In its first five years
of operation the park attracted over 3½ million visitors.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- LYNDON B. JOHNSON STATE HISTORICAL PARK
- GILLESPIE COUNTY
- JOHNSON, LYNDON BAINES
- LYNDON B. JOHNSON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK
- Links to other Web sites (will be opened in new browser window)
- Lyndon B. Johnson State Park and Historic Site
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Folk Festival inaugurated in Kerrville (1972)
- Partisan leader promoted (1864)
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