Historical Marker

The Birthplace of Rebekah Baines Johnson

McKinney, Collin County · Texas
Erected 1976

Rebekah Baines was born in 1881 in a town that was changing fast. The Houston and Texas Central had reached McKinney in 1872, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas followed in 1881, the year of her birth. The Handbook of Texas lists what the county seat offered farmers: flour, corn and cotton mills, cotton gins, a cotton compress, a cottonseed oil mill, banks, churches, newspapers and, from the 1880s, an opera house. Her father's trade was among those listed, since he helped found a McKinney newspaper, the Advocate, in 1878.

What the plaque says

The Birthplace of Rebekah Baines Johnson Joseph Wilson Baines (1846-1906), son of minister editor-Baylor University President George W. Baines, settled in Collin county in 1867. He taught school and in 1869 married Ruth Huffman, daughter of a physician of the Peters Colony. Baines read law under ex-governor James W. Throckmorton, began his practice, edited the McKinney "Advocate", and helped organize and build the city's first Baptist church. He and his wife lived at this site when their child Rebekah was born. Baines served 1883 to 1887 as Texas Secretary of State, later practiced law in Blanco and Fredericksburg, and was a legislator in 1903-1904. Rebekah Baines (1881-1958) studied at Baylor College in Belton and became a teacher and journalist. In 1907 she married Sam Early Johnson, Jr. (1877-1937), a rancher and former schoolteacher who also served in the Texas Legislature from 1905 through 1908 and from 1917 through 1923. The couple continued to ranch in the Hill Country, published the Johnson City "Record-Courier", and were parents of five children. Their eldest, Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973), after a long career in the national Congress, served as the 36th president of the United States. (1976)

Where it stands

33.19341, -96.61340 · Directions

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