Senior Ranger Finds Peace at LBJ Historic Park

The long and diverse federal career of Harry O’Bryant, who now runs the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in the Texas Hill Country, began one April night 30 years ago as he was driving through Yosemite National Park, on his way from San Francisco to Nevada in search of a job.

A late snowstorm had blocked the mountain roads in the park, so O’Bryant pulled over and spent the night in his beat-up 1950 Ford. His midnight snack was shared with a black bear that neatly opened a jar of jelly as though it were an invited guest. That was the first encounter of the ursine kind for O’Bryant, who grew up in Amarillo, Tex., and was trained as an engineer.

It was what happened at sunrise the next morning, however, that changed his life.

He arose to what he called “the purest, cleanest, most spectacular view of nature I’d ever seen” --mountains, blue skies, evergreens, deep, clear lakes --a scene so alluring that he abandoned his journey and stayed in Yosemite. He landed a job with the National Park Service--clearing snow from the very road that he could not pass. Within a year, he was a firefighter and then a full-fledged ranger living in a cabin in the High Sierra, 18 miles by horseback from the main station. He married a woman from Australia and began a family during the 10 years he spent there.

Military-Type Service

O’Bryant says that working for the National Park Service is not unlike the military: If you want to move up, you go where they want you to go, but sometimes that is not such a bad deal.

He was next assigned to the Great Smokies, where he supervised craft operations for a federal Job Corps center, and later served in the U.S. Virgin Islands, at Ft. McHenry in Baltimore, in Philadelphia for the Bicentennial, on Padre Island National Seashore in Texas, in New Orleans. Three years ago on Jan. 22, the 11th anniversary of Lyndon B. Johnson’s death, he arrived in Johnson City to run the 500-acre park and ranch.

The Texas Hill Country is a region of subtle beauty whose vistas of rolling hills, rivers, fields of wildflowers and stands of old, live oaks defy the stereotype of a flat and dry land.

The national park--which includes the house where LBJ was born, the ranch that became the Texas White House and the cemetery where he is buried under a modest, red granite stone--lies along the Pedernales River about 60 miles west of Austin, the state capital. Johnson’s widow, Lady Bird, divides her time between the ranch house and Austin when she isn’t traveling around the country.

Likes Lady Bird

The first thing O’Bryant was told before in Johnson City was that he had to develop a good relationship with Lady Bird. No problem.

“She’s a pistol, a delightful neighbor,” he said. “A non-demanding neighbor, perhaps unlike her husband in that respect.”

Living in Johnson City has forced O’Bryant to socialize more than usual. Not that this is a thriving metropolis (population around 860), but in villages of this size, O’Bryant has learned, everyone is expected to know everyone else.

In Yosemite or even in Baltimore or Philadelphia, he could spend his days in relative isolation, but here he finds himself constantly inquiring as to the health and happiness of hundreds of neighbors.

At lunch in Charles’ Cafe, on Route 290 at the edge of town, O’Bryant, who dresses each day in his ranger uniform, shares stories with the domino-playing owner and Cubby, the local banker who wore a tie the other day for the first time this year (he said he only dresses fancy when his bank has hard times). The regulars include local pols and lawyers and Luke Kent, a lanky, slow-talking turkey farmer who looks like a 70-year-old Clint Eastwood.

One gets the sense that if anything ugly happened at the LBJ park, Luke and his cowpokes would mosey on up there to settle the score. But so far there has not been much need for a posse.

Secret Service Presence

Lady Bird Johnson is still under Secret Service protection--the agents keep watch on the ranch house from a little building out back. During O’Bryant’s three years here, he said, “We haven’t had one incident. Shoot, we don’t even have a problem with litter.”

That might be fitting for a park inhabited by the creator of the Keep America Beautiful campaign, but it also points out a problem that perplexes O’Bryant: The place isn’t getting enough visitors.

Last year, 306,000 people toured the park and ranch, and that’s about 200,000 fewer than O’Bryant thinks it should attract, considering the yearly traffic counts on the highway and the park’s proximity to Austin and San Antonio.

One section of the park, containing a farmhouse from which Johnson’s grandfather rounded up longhorn cattle in the years after the Civil War, is a forgotten jewel, attracting fewer than 40,000 visitors each year. The park service used to run horse-drawn carriages out to this area, known as the Johnson Settlement, but had to drop them during the federal budget cutbacks of recent years.

The park receives $1.5 million in federal funds each year, and under agreement with the Johnson family is not allowed to charge admission.

Surprisingly many of the visitors are retired couples and tour groups. They usually joke about the Sears, Roebuck catalogue in the outhouse. The most commonly asked question is: What is Lady Bird’s real name? (It’s Claudia.)

Conservative View

O’Bryant, 57, who earns $44,536 as superintendent, said he is not disheartened by federal cutbacks because he has come to believe that people expect too much of government.