Nature-loving Lady Bird enjoyed tour of Big Bend

Lady Bird Johnson loved the great outdoors until her death at the age of 94 last Wednesday, July 11, and the Big Bend area was, of course, no exception.

While in the area to dedicate Fort Davis National Historic Site in 1966, Mrs. Johnson, the former first lady of the United States of America, the wife of Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, toured Big Bend National Park as well.

A year earlier, she picnicked at Doubtful Canyon with Ike Roberts and his father, Travis Roberts, Jr., of Marathon.

Mrs. Johnson was best known for her parks and highways beautification program, of which Texas - her home state - may have been the greatest beneficiary.

Joe Frantz, a member of the National Parks Board during Johnson's administration, was asked to accompany Mrs. Johnson to Big Bend, according to an oral history provided by the LBJ Library Oral History Collection.

Frantz said he was invited to go with the group, which included Mrs. Johnson, some members of her staff and members of the Washington female press corps.

"They had an evening out there on the flat above the basin campground; they had Cactus Pryor and me; they had Brownie McNeil, otherwise known as Norman, president of Sul Ross, to sing border ballads; and they had some young rock group come in from Sul Ross."

Frantz says that one girl from Mademoiselle magazine wore satin slippers and a cashmere sweater to go on a trail hike. "She came for an afternoon garden party, which it wasn't," he says. "Mrs. Johnson on the trail wore a red-checkered shirt and blue jeans, sneakers and as straw hat."

At Panther Junction, the group ate a "barbecue and beans" outdoor luncheon and was entertained by a mariachi band.

On their second day, they rafted in a very low Rio Grande. Several times people beached their rafts to take a rest, sometimes on the Mexican side of the river. However, says Frantz, "Mrs. Johnson would never get out. She was very careful not to get off U.S. soil, or to put it the other way, not to violate Mexican soil without proper credentials. So hers never went over to that side of the river."

When they came out of the canyon, they ate lunch and let their clothes dry out.

"Now Mrs. Johnson in a situation like that is utterly informal, very friendly and sometimes it's almost difficult to remember that she's the First Lady," says Frantz. "She's not a professional glad-hander or anything like that; she's just enjoying herself and talking with everybody."

After the rafting, Mrs. Johnson was taken to Fort Davis, where she dedicated the old fort and was the keynote speaker.

Frantz notes that one of the reasons Mrs. Johnson came to the area was to publicize Big Bend, "which has always been an undervisited park."

According to Ike Roberts of Marathon, he and his father, Travis, Sr., escorted Mrs. Johnson and other to a picnic at Doubtful Canyon in 1965.

Roberts, who was 25 at the time, told the Avalanche that an archaeologist from the University of Texas also came along, and later returned to trace the Native American pictographs which can be found on the canyon walls, and which are now archived at UT.

While at a bull sale in Marfa the day before, Roberts was told that Lady Bird was coming, and asked if he and his father would take her to Doubtful Canyon.

He asked his dad when he returned to Marathon. "Hell, no," he said. "Who is Mrs. Johnson?"

Roberts said his father thought he was talking about a local Mrs. Johnson, the one who owned a beer joint in Marathon.

Anyway, the two did take her to the canyon, along with two Secret Service agents.

"We had a good time. She loved it," said Roberts. "She was just as nice as she could be. It wasn't a real big crowd, so it was kind of one-on-one."

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Nature-loving Lady Bird enjoyed tour of Big Bend

Lady Bird Johnson loved the great outdoors until her death at the age of 94 last Wednesday, July 11, and the Big Bend area was, of course, no exception.

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