LBJ Birthday Celebration Concluded, Board Looks Foward to Next Year
by Bill Arbon, Chairman, Johnson City Historical Review Board
By all counts, the joint LBJ National Historal Park and Johnson City Historical Review Board's celebration of Lyndon B. Johnson's 89th birthday was a qualified sucess. We had speakers and guests from all over the county participating in this fine event. Besides tourists enjoying themeslves were citizens from Blanco, Stonewall, Roundmoutain, and other parts of the county and state in attendance.
Our guest speakers included Magaret Walker, who knew Lyndon when he was a boy, Byron Crider, owner of Crider's Motel, County Judge George Byers, whose father and Johnson City mayor, was in charge of making communication between Johnson City and Washington, D.C. possible, Roy Byers, member of the Blanco County Historic Commission, of Blanco, and Bill Casparis, owner of Times Ago Collections. These participants led us through nearly 90 years of Johnson City history that included, of course, stories about Lyndon Johnson's child - hood, youth, young adult - hood and his career as it influcenced the area as our congressional representative, Senator, Vice-President and President. Especially entertaining was Roy Byer's picture of Lyndon Johnson's kick-off campaign ralley held in Blanco in Blanco State Park in which some 4,000 people attended. Besides the politicin', real open - pit bar b que cooked on a pit (actual pit dug in the ground) some 160 feet in length in which whole sides of beef and other fare were cooked and turned with pitch forks. This must have been a spectacle worth experiencing, indeed! There is no doubt that Lyndon Johnson's impact on our county community was felt on a personal level, as all our participants made clear.
Other stories were both interesting and entertaining, and, if comments from the participants are any indication, plans for next year are now being hatched. In addition to the good time our participants had, the LBJ memorabilia exhibit was absolutely astounding, thanks to Teet Hobbs' extraordianry collection, (whose personal LBJ stories we missed, but hope to hear next year) formed the core of the exhibit. Air Force One playing cards, pens, a pocket knive, medallions, White House invitations and many many other items were unhesitantly shared with us in our exhibit. Our own Linda Wiles added news media plackards made by Mayor Byers and provided by Arkie Byers from the old communication center. We placed these on the table in front of all our speaking participants.
For those of you who may not have realized this, our effort to put together this community appreciation was only a little more than a month in preparation and execution. We knew before hand that to produce a truly outstanding celebration would take many months of planning and effort. The sentiment expressed by the participants and visitors was overwhelmingly in favor of another celebration next year for what will be Lyndon's 90th birthday. Consequently beginning this month our meeting of the Johnson City Historical Review Board will be for brainstorming our ideas for next year's celebration. If you missed this year's event because of scheduling conflicts with the Gillespie County fair and rodeo -- and most 'specially, the horse races -- come to a meeting of our committee this month or anytime in the coming year and give us your ideas. This event will be a most important one and all of us should participate. So don't be shy if you want to have a good time and at the same time put every community in Blanco County in the limelight. If you cannot make the meetings which are always held the second Monday of each month at 7:00PM at City Hall, give me, Bill Arbon, Chairman, a call at 868-4509 and let's plan for next year's event.
In closing, we want to thank the participants, the visitors, the guests, our friends and neigbors, and especially the voluteers of the Johnson City Womens Civic Club for their outstanding efforts of baking their wonderful cakes and serving them with ice cream and lemonade.
We also appreciate the efforts and deeds of the staff and volunteers of the LBJ National Historical Park made this event possible, and of course we thank Superintendant Lieslie Starr Hart and Mayor Kermit Roeder for making the event possible We look foward to next year's event. Hope you'll join us then.
1998 Birthday Interesting and Informative
This year's event went well and improved upon last year's celebration. We are looking foward to even bigger things next year, so come back here for the details later in 1999. In the meantime, enjoy what Blanco County News staff writer said about this years 90th Birthday celebration for President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Johnson City celebrates LBJ, historic district
By Murlin Evans
BLANCO COUNTY NEWS
On Saturday morning, a guided tour hosted by the Johnson City Historic Review Board kicked off a days worth of events celebrating the history of a town and the legacy of its favorite son, Lyndon Baines Johnson.
At 10:30 a.m. Review Board Vice President, Steve Handzo led over 20 participants in a walking tour of the recently designated Johnson City downtown Historic District of which the LBJ boyhood home is a part. The hour-long tour included background information on the Johnson City family, LBJ's early education and boyhood haunts.
Beginning at 1:00 p.m., The LBJ National Historical Park hosted its 4th annual ice cream social at the LBJ boyhood home in Johnson City. Visitors were invited to tour the historic site and then gather in the back yard to enjoy home made ice cream, lemonade and various cakes served by the Johnson City Women’s Club. An all-female barbershop quartet, The Singing Notables of Austin, serenaded guests as they participated in 1920's era games including washers, croquet, and marbles.
Sherry Justus, Public Affairs Officer for the National Historical Park, calls the event a success, estimating total attendance at around 300, up from last year's 240. "I think we got more people this time from San Antonio. It seemed that more people were driving out for it because we had more of a publicity campaign this year with the Historic Review Board."
The ice cream social was conceived by the National Historical Park as a community event to compliment Ladybird's annual wreath-laying ceremony.
In an effort to promote a better understanding of the life and times of LBJ, The Johnson City National Historic Review Board presented a lecture by Dr. Mary Brennan from Southwest Texas State University’s Department of History. The lecture was held in the auditorium at the Pedernales Electric Cooperative headquarters in Johnson City, a building that was the direct result of LBJ's hard work as a U.S. Congressman.
Dr. Brennan focused her lecture on LBJ's landslide presidential victory in 1964 over Barry Goldwater and its impact on the Republican Party, an impact that still resonates today. LBJ won the election with 61.1% surpassing even FDR's 1936 margin with the biggest popular vote majority in history.
Following the lecture, a panel discussion including local personalities familiar with LBJ was moderated by Johnson City Historic Review Board President, Bill Arbon. The panel included P.C. Rust, Ruby and Levi Deike, George Byars, Roy Byars, Lillian Stewart, Werner Hohenberger and Vernon Crider. Panel members shared memories of LBJ as a boy playing baseball on the local team to the young man as an aspiring politician.
This marks the second year for the panel discussion and Johnson City Historic Review Board President Arbon was pleased with the public response that filled the PEC auditorium. According to Arbon, the increasing activity of the Review Board is part of a larger effort to get the Johnson City downtown Historic District recognized in the National Register of Historic Places. To get the process underway, Southwest Texas State University has accepted a grant from the National Park Service to fund a graduate course to teach students how to do a historical survey of Johnson City. That course will be conducted this fall so that in the spring, students will come to Johnson City to conduct the actual survey.
"We want to highlight the historic district and historic families, not just the Johnson family," Arbon explains. "It's about all the families living at that time who are still living in Stonewall, Blanco, Johnson City, and Round Mountain. We want to bring stability and cohesiveness to the town."
Formed in 1997, The Johnson City Historic Review Board will hold its next meeting on September 14.