The Baines House: LBJ's Great-Grandfather in Salado
Near Killeen, Texas
The white dogtrot house just off the main road belonged to one of the most consequential Baptist ministers in Texas history, and also to the family tree of a president. George Washington Baines was born in eighteen oh nine in North Carolina and arrived in Texas as a frontier preacher. He was converted at a revival in eighteen thirty-two, was ordained in eighteen thirty-six, and later served as pastor to Sam Houston in Huntsville. He co-founded Baylor University, served as its third president, and launched the first Baptist newspaper in Texas, the Texas Baptist, in eighteen fifty-five. He joined the Baylor board of trustees in eighteen fifty-one. As president he served only about a year and conferred a single diploma.
Baines moved to Salado in eighteen sixty-seven and lived in this one-and-a-half-story Greek Revival frame house until his death in eighteen eighty-two. It was his final home. He had come to Salado so a daughter could attend Salado College, and he died of malaria a day before his seventy-third birthday. He is buried in the Old Salado Graveyard. His son Joseph Wilson Baines was the father of Rebekah, who married Sam Johnson Junior, and in nineteen oh eight they had a son named Lyndon Baines Johnson. The house stands today as a bed and breakfast, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since nineteen eighty-three. The Baines bloodline runs quietly through it.
