11/05/2025
A 1966 photo of Lady Bird Johnson's birthplace in Karnack, Texas. It still stands and has a great history.
Back in the 1840s, Captain Cephus K. Andrews built what he liked to call “the brick house” out on his 600-acre plantation.The bricks were all handmade on site by enslaved laborers. The work was overseen by a builder named George W. Taloo. Not much is known about Andrews himself, other than that he served as Harrison County’s first clerk.
In 1902, the old place was bought by Thomas Jefferson Taylor, a well-to-do landowner and merchant from Karnack. He moved in with his wife Minnie and their three kids. Folks said the previous owners had been a bit eccentric, and the house needed plenty of fixing up. One room, according to stories, was literally full of hickory nuts. The youngest Taylor child was Claudia Alta—better known as “Lady Bird.” She was born upstairs in the front room on the right in 1912. Her nurse, Alice Tittle, nicknamed her “Lady Bird” and looked after her after Minnie died in 1918.
Claudia went to school in Fern, Jefferson, and Marshall schools before heading to the University of Texas, where she earned a journalism degree.
Minnie passed away in 1918, and T.J. Taylor was widowed for a few years. His second marriage ended quickly, but his third—to Ruth Scroggins in 1937—lasted until his death in 1960. Ruth inherited the home and property. In 1934, T.J. had already donated about two-thirds of his land—roughly 385 acres—to the state, land that would become Caddo Lake State Park.
In 1966, columnist Frank X. Tolbert wrote about a ghost said to haunt the house. The tale came from Lady Bird’s brother, Tony Taylor, who claimed a young girl was once struck by lightning that came down the chimney, and that her spirit still wanders the place. Some family members swore they heard a woman sobbing or moving about at night. Then again, old T.J. was known to keep peacocks and other exotic birds that could shriek loud enough to spook anyone after dark.
