LBJ Ranch: The Hill Country Ranch Where Herefords Still Graze

What is the LBJ Ranch?

The LBJ Ranch is the Hill Country home of President Lyndon B. Johnson, set along the Pedernales River near Johnson City, Texas, and now part of Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park. According to the National Park Service's ranching page, Johnson spent summers as a teenager helping on his uncle Clarence Martin's ranch along the river. In 1951 he received a dilapidated 250-acre ranch from his widowed aunt in exchange for a lifetime right to his mother's house in Johnson City, and he built it into a 2,700-acre ranch.

Johnson often ran the country from the ranch, about 50 miles from Austin, and hosted guests there as Senate majority leader, vice president and president, according to a Georgia Farm Bureau article. The house became known as the Texas White House.

How did Johnson ranch?

Johnson used improved practices as president: rotational grazing, terracing and stock ponds. The National Park Service says these raised carrying capacity from one cow and calf per sixteen acres to two per acre. Over 1,100 acres were planted in improved grasses, and a liquid fertilizer plant was built.

The Georgia Farm Bureau article says the ranch had grown to about 4,000 acres by his death in 1973, which differs from the park service's 2,700-acre figure, so sources differ on total acreage.

Why did Johnson raise Herefords?

Johnson started a registered Hereford herd in 1957, and most of the cattle were sold for breeding. The herd reached about 400 head by 1973. The park service explains that registered Herefords sold for breeding made up a large part of a rancher's income and that show prizes raised their value.

Polled Herefords were less common then, so his cattle were horned, and the Georgia Farm Bureau article says he branded the horns instead of the hides to keep the hides blemish-free. Neither source says why he chose Herefords over other breeds, so none is offered here.

The Show Barn

In 1966 Johnson moved the cattle operation to a new Show Barn about a mile north of the house, to ease his wife's concerns about the nearby cattle, per the National Park Service. The farm bureau article says walkways were wide enough for his Cadillac so guests could view the prize cattle, and that he drove guests around the ranch in a white Lincoln Continental convertible to show off the cattle and land.

How the ranch became a park

Johnson retired to the ranch in 1969. He and Mrs. Johnson donated a portion of the ranch to the newly established Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Site. Johnson required that the ranch stay a working ranch, not a sterile relic of the past, according to the park service.

The National Park Service says the park manages the ranch as a living demonstration of ranching the LBJ way, with a Hereford herd descended from Johnson's registered cattle. The park's history page says Hereford cattle still roam the same pastures and that visitors can see cows at the Show Barn.

The LBJ herd today

As of the February 2020 farm bureau article, the park kept a horned Hereford herd run as a living museum rather than a commercial operation. A staff of three maintained about 70 mother cows that calve in two seasons. The ranch sold about 50 to 60 calves a year at roughly 500 pounds, kept most heifers, and sold breeding bulls at 18 months to two years, weighing about 2,000 pounds and averaging about $2,250. Because the cattle are federal property, they must be sold at public auction.

Visit the LBJ Ranch

The park is run from Johnson City, and the National Park Service said in early 2026 that the Texas White House was closed for renovations. Check current conditions before visiting. For more on Texas ranching, see farm.FM's ranching section and read a story about Hereford cattle in Texas.