It has been 70 days since left, what a wonderful trip it has been, from being shut down for 2 days , due to an ice storm in Houston, visiting the beautiful sandy beaches on te Gulf Coast , a rodeo in St Antonio, the King Ranch, Billy Bob's the worlds largest honky tonk, the libraries of 2 presidents and , a 500 acre flea market, I think we have seen it all. The only miner disappointment would be that we didn't get to see the western part of th estate
Fort Worth Stockyards are in the old historic district of Fort worth. At one time this was the 2 largest stockyards in US. Thousands of head of cattle, horses and mules were sold through here. Today they have a rodeo every Friday and Saturday night. About 3 blocks have all been restored to shopping and restaurants with a western them. Every day at 11am and 4 Pm they herd a dozen long horns through the streets with cowboys on horses. The rodeo hall of fame is here as well as Billy Bob Texas, the largest Honky Tonk in the world. Sellout is 6500 people.
One of the herders for the long horns
Herding the long horns in the rain
Billy Bobs
Largest Honky Tonk in the world. Capacity 6500 patrons
They have a collection of guitars from musicians that played there. This is Blake Sheltons
Blake Shelton when he was a whole lot younger Too Funny
Some of the guitars on display
They not only have live music but lots of pool tables
On the weekends they have a bull riding ring right in the bar, you can sit in the bleachers white taking a break from partying.
On May 19th 1836, a band of Indians came to Parker's Fort asking for beef, water and a place to camp. When greeted by the Parkers the Indians attacked, taking five captives! The most famous these was 9 year old Cynthia Ann Parker. She was adopted by a Comanche family, grew up to marry Chief Peta Nocona and later gave birth to the last great Warrior Chief of the Comanches, Quanah Parker.
The Texas Rangers later recaptured her , but by this time she could no longer speak English and never wanted to return to the white mans way of life.
This was the bases for the John Wayne movie "Searchers"
It was a rainy cold miserable day so the pictures didn't turn out well. There were 7 cabins in side the stockade. Each were living quarters for one family. One room with a fireplace. The stockade was built with sharpened posts put 3 feet into the ground and 12 feet high with sharp pointed tops so it would be difficult to climb over.
They built these lookouts on 2 corners with holes in the walls to keep watch for the Indians and to shoot through.
Mongolian Market is a shopping experience created by a husband and wife team. She is a designer and he is a contractor. They have their own reality TV show. They purchased an old down town feed mill on maybe 3 or 4 acres and created a shopping experience. The grain silos are still there but not used, the rest of the buildings are used for retail. It is a bit like an IKEA for home decorating etc. Quite expensive but nice products. It was packed with shoppers. They have a huge shipping counter operated by Fed Ex where you can purchase your product and have it shipped right from there. Around the perimeter of the area are 8 or 9 interesting food trucks. A separate small store is all about gardening. The center of the property is a giant play area. People can come here and just hang out with there kids.
Very cool concept that really couldn't be duplicated, it is truly one of a kind
There were 2 of these bird watching areas. Many kinds of birds but what was different was that there were flocks off Robins. Apparently they winter here.
Luckenback Texas is a town of 3 or 4 houses and a little town center of a general store, a bar , a hat store and a dance hall. It has existed since the mid 1800 but became famous after the song " Lets go to Luckenback Texas was published. On the Saturday night we were there, there was about 500 people for the dance. Every day the have some one playing music in the bar.
We missed visiting Johnsons official museum in Austin when we were there. I thought this was the official museum but it was only his ranch and the Texas White house
Lyndon B Johnson was John Kennedy's vice president. He served after Kennedy's death plus one term ending in 1969.
This is the Texas White House as it was known. It was originally about a 1500 sq foot home but by the time he finished adding on it was around 8000 sq feet. He spent 25% of his days in office at this place. When he worked here he would have as many as 75 people come with him. They held high level meetings here, and passed bills, signed bills and announced them from here. Can you imagine the expense and security etc that would be required to fly all of these people to Austin and then by the plane pictured below and helicopters out to the ranch. (Makes Trumps Margo de Lago look pretty normal.) This was the place he met and entertained foreign leaders.
This was the jetstar usedto transport him from Austin. He built a runaway down the center of his ranch but it was not big enough for airforce one.
He had 4 Lincoln continentals at the ranch, one his wife drove, and one her chauffeur drove.
He had a white convertible for nice days and another hard top
His ranch was 2600 acres. They bred purebred Hereford cattle. They donated 600 of the 2600 to the National park system to house some of his memorabilia and his show off his ranch etc. His descendents still own the 2000.
How he made his 98 million dollar estate
As I toured the ranch and learn ed of his extravagant life style I knew that a person who was a school teacher and then an elected official or assistant all his life had to have an interesting history. There is an interesting store following life before being the president that partially explains it.
Life before being the President
Lyndon Baines Johnson was pure Texan. His family included some of the earliest settlers of the Lone Star State. They had been cattlemen, cotton farmers, and soldiers for the Confederacy. Lyndon was born in 1908 to Sam and Rebekah Baines Johnson, the first of their five children. His mother was reserved and genteel while his father was a talker and a dreamer, a man cut out for more than farming. Sam Johnson won election to the Texas legislature when he was twenty-seven. He served five terms before he switched careers and failed to make a living solely as a farmer on the family land seventy miles west of Austin.
Education and Teaching Career
In 1913, the Johnson's abandoned the farm and moved to nearby Johnson City. The family house, while comfortable by the standards of the rural South at the time, had neither electricity nor indoor plumbing. Lyndon, like his father, wanted more for his future. In fact, when he was twelve, he told classmates, "You know, someday I'm going to be president of the United States." Later in life, Johnson would remember: "When I was fourteen years old I decided I was not going to be the victim of a system which would allow the price of a commodity like cotton to drop from forty cents to six cents and destroy the homes of people like my own family." The climb out of the Texas Hill Country, however, would be a steep one. School, at first, was a one-room, one-teacher enterprise. Johnson City High School was a three-mile mule ride away from home. Lyndon graduated in 1924, president of his six-member senior class.
Sam Johnson's financial troubles took a toll on his health and his family. The Johnson's scrimped to send Lyndon to summer courses at Southwest Texas State Teachers College to supplement his meager rural education. But the boy did not do well, and he was not allowed into the college after finishing high school. This led to a "lost" period in Lyndon's life, during which he drifted about. With five friends, he bought a car and drove to California, where he did odd jobs and briefly worked in a cousin's law office. Lyndon then hitchhiked back to Texas and performed manual labor on a road crew. He fell into fights and drinking that eventually led to his arrest. In 1927, he refocused his energies on a teaching career and was accepted to Southwest Texas State Teachers College.
Johnson was an indifferent student, but he eagerly pursued extracurricular activities such as journalism, student government, and debating. He excelled in his student teaching and was assigned to a tiny Hispanic school in a deeply impoverished area. Johnson literally took over the school in Cotulla, pushing the long-neglected students and giving them a shred of hope and pride in their achievements. He earned glowing references. When Johnson graduated in 1930, however, America was just entering the Great Depression. His first teaching job paid $1,530—for the year. Johnson again did an exemplary job, but the unpaid political work he had been doing in his free time had fueled other ambitions. Not surprisingly, his teaching career was brief.
Tirelessly, he helped a political friend of his father in some local campaigns, and by late 1931, he had won a job as an aide to U.S. Congressman Richard Kleberg of Corpus Christi. In Washington, Johnson's work ethic was astounding. He poured over every detail of congressional protocol. No mail from Kleberg's constituents went unanswered. He was, in short, a model assistant. His drive, ambition, and competence made him stand out among the young people in Washington at that time. When he returned to Texas in 1934 to visit family, he met a twenty-one-year-old woman named Claudia Alta Taylor, a recent University of Texas graduate and a member of a wealthy East Texas family. They married three months later.
Marriage and Congressional Career
As a baby, Claudia's nanny had described her as "pretty as a lady bird," and the nickname stuck. Deeply shy but genuine and charming, Lady Bird became a refining balance to her boisterous, hyperactive husband and was a gracious hostess to Johnson's powerful new friends. The new President, Franklin Roosevelt, was fighting the Depression with dozens of social programs. Johnson, with the support of future Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, won appointment as Texas director of the National Youth Administration, a federal youth-employment program. Again, his work was superb, and when James Buchanan, the congressman in his home district, died in 1937, Johnson quickly moved to grab the job. He tapped his new wife's inheritance and her increasing assets as owner of a local radio station, aligned himself with Roosevelt's sweeping social policies, and won election in Texas's Tenth District. He was just twenty-eight years old.
Because of his age and ambition for even higher office, Johnson's early congressional record produced few results. By the late 1930s, however, he was winning federal housing projects and dams for his district. He managed to bring electrical power to the lonely Texas Hill Country of his youth, something he claimed for the rest of his days as his proudest achievement. When one of Texas's two U.S. senators died in 1941, Johnson seemed certain to inherit the job, but a conservative former radio star-turned-governor named W. Lee "Pass the Biscuits, Pappy" O'Daniel entered the race late. It was widely alleged that both candidates used fraudulent votes, but O'Daniel finagled more than Johnson and carried the election.
Still a member of the House, Johnson used his contacts with Roosevelt to obtain an officer's commission in the Naval Reserve. When the U.S. entered World War II, Johnson was appointed congressional inspector of the wars progress in the Pacific, thus maintaining his seat in the House. He went on a single bombing mission, securing the "combat record" and a Silver Star for serving under hostile fire. Observing wartime industrial and technological trends, Johnson invested and became well-to-do for the first time. Lady Bird, meanwhile, gave birth to two daughters, one born in 1944 and another three years later.
By the time the war ended, the world was a very different place—and so was America. Its uneasy ally from the war, the Soviet Union, refused to withdraw its armed forces from Europe. The Cold War had begun. Many of Johnson's countrymen were weary of the New Deal's activist social policies at home and the threat of more war overseas; the new communist expansion abroad frightened them. The Democrats were losing their longtime grip on Congress and the White House. While Johnson easily won a sixth term in 1948, his opponent painted him as an old-style liberal, a career politician who had profited from the war while exposing himself to little risk. The charges lingered into the following year, when Johnson tried once again to enter the U.S. Senate.
Yet again a popular Texas governor was in the way. His name was Coke Stevenson, and his presence and character were so impressive that he was widely known as "Mr. Texas." Johnson and Stevenson battled endlessly for the Democratic nomination and forced a runoff. The young congressman then waged an all-out, rough-and-tumble Lone Star State campaign and showed that he had learned lessons since his earlier Senate defeat. Three counties in the southern portion of the state provided highly suspicious vote tallies that gave Johnson the victory in the Democratic primary—crucial in those days to a general election, since Republicans were few and far between and could never win the subsequent election—by 87 votes out of a 250,000 cast. He easily defeated his Republican opponent in the general election and won the Senate seat, but the cost to his credibility was steep. Everyone knew the election had been rife with fraud, and his slim, questionable margin of victory was certainly no popular mandate. Critics began calling him "Landslide Lyndon," and the new senator found their disdain hard to shake for a long time.
Senator par Excellence
As a senator, Johnson found his true calling. The Senate, with only a quarter of the membership of the House, gave him a higher national profile. Johnson's ascent to power was startling; by the end of his first term, he was one of the most powerful senators in America. He used strategies that had enabled his fast climb in the House: wooing powerful members, angling for spots on important committees, and outworking everyone. Because both Senate Democratic leaders had been defeated by the resurgent Republicans in the recent election, it was a time of rapid advancement for newcomers. Just two years into his Senate term, Johnson was named the whip, or assistant to his party's leader, in charge of rounding up votes. Two years after that, Republicans won a majority in the Senate on the coattails of the new President, Dwight Eisenhower. Once again, Johnson's Democratic superiors were election casualties, so he became minority leader. In the fall 1954 elections, the Democrats had regained control of the Senate, and when the Senate convened in 1955, Johnson became majority leader. It was a dizzyingly fast climb.
Early in LBJ's Senate career, he had championed military preparedness, but as he rose to power, he increasingly turned his attention to domestic issues. Already contemplating a White House run of his own, he strategically sought to work with, not against, the popular Eisenhower. Laboring almost around the clock, begging and berating to get his way, Johnson was the Senate's master, perhaps its most powerful leader ever. Working with fellow Texan and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, Johnson was able to compile an impressive record of legislative achievement. LBJ did his homework and had an uncanny ability to know how to approach other senators. He became known for the "Johnson Treatment," in which he leaned close in on a senator, towering over his prey, speaking softly and cajoling, flattering, even bribing, until he won the senator's vote.
Unfortunately, his drive and ambition almost killed him. In mid-1955, he suffered a massive heart attack in the bucolic Virginia countryside. Not yet fifty, he reassessed his life; he quit smoking, lost weight, and tried to delegate more of his work. He was instrumental in winning passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, working closely with Eisenhower while soothing southern colleagues who were suspicious of such social change. When the Soviets launched Sputnik, the world's first satellite that year, he led the way to get America into the race for space. By 1958, Johnson sensed that he had gone as far in the Senate as he ever would. He turned his sights on the prize of prizes: the presidency.
A Heartbeat from the Presidency
Being from the South was still a handicap to a presidential candidate in 1960; the region had not yet assumed the kind of power that would put Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton in the White House in later years. In 1952 and 1956, Johnson had tried but failed to be named vice president on the Democratic ticket, referring to himself as a "western" candidate. In 1960, his primary foe for the nomination was his Senate colleague, John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Massachusetts. For the only time in his life, Johnson was out-campaigned. Kennedy announced his candidacy early, spent lavishly, worked local political machines with corporate efficiency, and piled up one primary win after another. Johnson held back, waiting for Kennedy's youth and Catholicism to take its toll. It never did. The young man from Boston won the party's nomination on the first ballot.
However, Kennedy was a decided underdog to win the White House. The Republicans had nominated a skilled and compelling candidate, Vice President Richard Nixon. The Democrats needed a running mate who would appeal to those that JFK made uneasy. Lyndon Johnson—southern, Protestant, mature, and the ultimate congressional insider—would be a perfect contrast to the northeastern, Catholic, youthful Democratic nominee. Kennedy was both amused and awed by the larger-than-life Texan and was mildly surprised when Johnson not only accepted the offer but campaigned hard for the ticket. It paid off because 1960 was the closest presidential race of the century. Several southern states that had defected to the Republicans during the Eisenhower years returned to the Democratic fold and helped Kennedy win. (See Kennedy biography, Campaigns and Elections section, for details.)Kennedy relegated Johnson to the outer circles of the New Frontier but did give him some significant responsibilities. Johnson headed the space program, played a key role in military policy, and chaired the President's Committee for Equal Employment Opportunity. In foreign policy, Johnson had much less influence, though he did encourage acceptance of a diplomatic "trade" of Russian missiles in Cuba for American ones in Turkey. Kennedy typically did not rely on LBJ for advice in these matters, however. Overall, Johnson was frustrated as vice president, particularly when the New Frontiersmen around Kennedy ignored him and refused to take advantage of his expertise.
In late November 1963, Kennedy decided to travel to Texas to shore up support for his upcoming reelection bid. Johnson was riding two cars behind Kennedy's in the motorcade when the bullets struck the young President. By the time Johnson reached the hospital, Kennedy was dead. Aboard Air Force One, before its return to Washington, Johnson was sworn in as President; Lady Bird and Kennedy's widow were at his side. When the plane landed, he gave a brief speech to his dazed nation, promising, "I will do my best—that is all I can do." Two weeks later, Johnson moved into the White House. One adviser never forgot the image of a mover packing Kennedy's trademark rocking chair—while another carried in Johnson's cowboy saddle."All that I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today," Johnson told a joint session of Congress when he outlined his plans for governing. He kept Kennedy's cabinet and top aides, telling them that he and the nation needed them to provide continuity. Within days, Johnson firmly grasped the reins of government. His grief at Kennedy's tragedy was balanced by the demands and responsibilities of the Oval Office.
When Johnson died he was one of the richest Presidents in US History. ( 98 Million net worth)This was before the era of high paid post presidency speeches.
The Honest Graft of Lady Bird Johnson
How she and Lyndon came by their millions.
By Jack Shafer
Lady Bird Johnson greets the press
The perturbed spirit of Lady Bird Johnson will rest until somebody writes a more complete article about how she and her husband became millionaires. Of the top dailies, only the New York Times and the Washington Post obituaries slow to savor the political skulduggery she and her husband, Rep. Lyndon Baines Johnson, relied on to pour the foundation of her business empire. Some of the clips find her scheme to "beautify" America more interesting than her blatant exercise in political graft. (See the deficient obituaries in the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and USA Today. See the relevant passages here.)
Robert A. Caro examines the roots of the Johnson broadcasting fortune in the second volume of his biography of LBJ, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent. Although Lyndon Johnson always protested that Lady Bird bought the station on her own and that he applied no political pressure to help her, Caro easily proves him a liar.
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In 1943, the year Lady Bird Johnson purchased KTBC, the Federal Communications Commission, which reviewed all broadcast-license transfers, was close to being abolished, Caro writes. Lyndon Johnson used his political influence in both Congress and the White House to prevent that from happening. The FCC was among the most politicized agencies in the government, Caro asserts, and it knew who its friends were.
Johnson socialized with FCC Commissioner Clifford Durr at the time, "sometimes at Durr's home, sometimes at his own," although Durr says Johnson never mentioned Lady Bird's application for KTBC's license. Lady Bird, however, directly approached Durr about the station, and Lyndon phoned James Barr of the FCC's Standard Broadcast Division. "He wanted to get a radio station, and what I remember is, he wouldn't take no for an answer," Caro quotes Barr.
Legendary Democratic fixer Tommy "The Cork" Corcoran also helped with the KTBC application—"all up and down the line," is how Corcoran put it. Asked in an interview whether Johnson's status as a member of Congress helped his wife's application, Corcoran said, "How do you think these things work? These guys [FCC staffers] have been around. You don't have to spell things out for them."
The Los Angeles Times and USA Today obituaries make it sound as if KTBC were a congenitally unprofitable station at the time of Lady Bird's bid and give the impression that she was the lone suitor for the property. That was not the case, as Caro documents the identities of the other interested bidders.
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Once Lady Bird completed her purchase of KTBC, the "five years of delays and red tape, or delays and unfavorable rules" from the FCC that had stymied the previous owners "vanished … and slowness was replaced by speed," according to Caro. In short order she got permission to broadcast 24 hours a day (KTBC had been a sunrise-to-sunset station) and move it to 590 on the dial—"an uncluttered, end of the dial" where it could be heard in 38 surrounding Texas counties. It was no coincidence. Lyndon and Lady Bird recruited a new station manager, promising 10 percent of the profits, and Lyndon told him that the changes in the license restrictions that would make KTBC a moneymaker were "all set." In 1945, the FCC OK'd KTBC's request to quintuple its power, which cast its signal over 63 counties.
When Lyndon visited William S. Paley, president of CBS radio, and asked if KTBC could become a CBS affiliate and carry its lucrative programming, he didn't have to spell out why the request should be granted. The radio networks feared the regulators in Washington as well as the members of Congress who regulated the regulators. KNOW in Austin had been repeatedly denied the affiliation because a San Antonio "affiliate could be heard in Austin." CBS Director of Research Frank Stanton approved Johnson's request.
Johnson shook down powerful companies to advertise on the station. Local businesses that wanted Army camps to remain located in Austin knew one way to secure Lyndon's help was to advertise on KTBC. Caro writes:
… Mrs. Johnson's ability as a business woman was not the crucial factor in the acquisition of the station or, once it was acquired, in its early growth. ... Lyndon Johnson had worked at politics for years to achieve power; now he was working at politics to make money.
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Under Texas law, the station belonged solely to Lady Bird because she purchased it with her inheritance. But as her spouse, Lyndon owned half of all the profits. He was ultra-active in recruiting staff and running the operation, and by 1948, Caro writes, he was telling his friends that he was a millionaire.
The Johnsons earned thousands from their radio station but millions from their TV stations, writes former FCC official William B. Ray in his book, FCC: The Ups and Downs of Radio Regulation. The commission allocated one commercial station to Austin in the early 1950s, and the Johnsons were its sole applicant. "Filing a competing application would have been a waste of money," Ray writes, because of the Johnsons' political clout. "Whenever there was a business matter to be discussed between CBS and the LBJ stations, Johnson would summon the appropriate CBS personnel to the White House to discuss it," he continues.
Was it graft? The crooks of Tammany Hall distinguished between honest graft—which they considered respectable—and dishonest graft. Honest grafters used political connections, such as tips as to where a new bridge was going to be built, to make surefire investments. Dishonest grafters stole directly from the treasury.
You can rest in peace now, Lady Bird. Your honest-grafting days are over.
******
The Johnsons' hometown newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, acquits itself on the subject of the family fortune in its Lady Bird obit. Send your spare millions via PayPal to slate.pressbox@gmail.com. (E-mail may be quoted by name in "The Fray," Slate's readers' forum, in a future article, or elsewhere unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co.)
After visiting the other fascinating cavern we decided to visit another very different one. This cavern was created by water flowing through the limestone. It had already been discovered by 1900 but during the depression the Civilian Army Corp was developed by the government to work on many projects such as state parks. You had to be single, between 17 and 25 years old. You were paid 25.00 per month. $20.00 was sent to your family and you were given $5.00 for your spending money.
Developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s, Longhorn Cavern State Park is a Texas Hill Country wonder, rich in human and geological history. The park’s centerpiece is Longhorn Cavern, a unique flow cave environment created over many years by the dissolving and cutting action of water on the limestone bedrock. Prehistoric creatures, colorful characters, and a healthy dose of Texas-sized folklore all play an important part in telling the unique story of Longhorn Cavern State Park.
In the center of this cave is a huge room about 75 feet across in any direction. They found skeletons of ancient animals, dating back thousands of years. The native Indians used these caves for a period and then were driven out by the white people. During the civil war ammunition was stored in them. In the 1920 there was a night club operated in them.
These caves have very smooth walls because they flood when ever there is prolonged period of rain.
