The LBJ Legacy: Pedernales Electric Co-op

Lyndon Johnson examines an electric light fixture, 1941.

LBJ Library photo / Austin American-Statesman

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Just as Johnson City helped shape Lyndon Johnson, Lyndon Johnson helped shape the modern face of Johnson City. Throughout the town are buildings that reflect Johnson's quest to ease the hardships he knew here in his youth. The former LBJ Hospital—now the park visitor center—is one of them.

The white stone building east of the boyhood home is the headquarters of the Pedernales Electric Cooperative or PEC, one of Lyndon Johnson's most important contributions to the people of the Texas Hill Country. Throughout the summer of 1938, freshman congressman Lyndon Johnson stumped hard for rural electrification. His arguments convinced wary farmers and ranchers that the cost would be worth the elimination of hand-pumped water, hand-washed laundry, and red-hot cook stoves. In 1939, electricity flowed to thousands of hill country residents for the first time.