HYE, TEXAS

On Hwy 290 between Johnson City and Stonewall, just east of Gillespie County line.

The Hye General Store and Post Office was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1966.

LBJ swore in Postmaster General Lawrence O'Brien here. It's safe to assume Mr. O'Brien traveled considerably further for the ceremony than did Mr. Johnson. Hye was named for Hiram G. Brown, the settler who established the Post Office in 1886.

The population of Hye has never exceeded 200.

Hye Society


by Michael Barr

Hye, Texas is a tiny rural community on U. S. Highway 290 between Fredericksburg and Johnson City, about four miles from the LBJ Ranch. The highway is wedged between the store and the old gas station across the street.

The store building is an aging wooden structure of Bavarian design that sits just a little too close to the highway. Eighty years ago the store carried everything from calico to horse collars, but today it seems more like a museum than anything else.

President Johnson selected this folksy setting for the O'Brien ceremony because at heart Johnson was a sentimental man. More than any president since Washington and Jefferson of Virginia, LBJ had a rock-solid sense of place. He loved his home in the Texas Hill Country and couldn't understand why everyone didn't feel the same way.

The president's attachment to Hye went back as far as he could remember. He mailed his first letter at the post office, to his Grandmother Johnson, at age four.... more

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