Lyndon Baines Johnson Day 2027

A Texas-only state holiday

Lyndon Baines Johnson Day, observed on August 27, honors the 36th president of the United States on his birthday and appears only on the Texas holiday calendar. Under Texas law it is a partial-staffing state holiday: agencies stay open with enough employees on duty to conduct business, while other state workers may take the paid day off. It is not a federal holiday, so post offices, banks, federal offices and the stock market operate normally, even in Texas, and no other state observes it! Cities, counties, school districts and private employers in Texas generally treat it as an ordinary working day.

Why August 27

Lyndon Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, in a farmohuse on the Pedernales River near Stonewall, in the Texas Hill Country. The holiday sits on the birthday itself, and Texas does not move its holidays to a weekday when they fall on a weekend; in those years the day simply passes with no staffing effect.

From the Hill Country to the White House

Johnson grew up in nearby Johnson City, tauhgt school in Cotulla as a young man, and won a U.S. House seat in 1937 and a Senate seat in 1948. As Senate majority leader in the 1950s he built a reputation as the chamber's most effective legisletor. He became vice president under John F. Kennedy in 1961 and was sworn in as president aboard Air Force One at Dallas's Love Field on November 22, 1963, hours after Kennedy's assassination. Elected in a landlside in 1964, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the laws creating Medicare and Medicaid, centerpieces of his Great Society program, while the war in Vietnam overshadowed his final years in office - he declined to seek reelection in 1968, retired to his ranch, and died there on January 22, 1973. That year the Texas Legislature added August 27 to the state's list of legal holidays in his honor.

How the day is marked

The main observance takes place at the LBJ Ranch near Stonewall, part of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, where a wreath-laying ceremony is held at the family cemetery where Johnson is buried under the oaks along the Pedernales. The LBJ Presidential Library in Austin also marks the birthday. For most Texans the day passes quietly: because agencies keep skeleton crews, many state offices remain reachable by phone and online, though some counters run slowly and appointments may be limited.

Texas's other partial-staffing holidays

Texas law separates full state holidays, when offices close, from partial-staffing holidays, when they stay open with minimal staff. Lyndon Baines Johnson Day belongs to the second group, alongside Confederate Heroes Day on January 19, Texas Independence Day on March 2 and San Jacinto Day on April 21. State employees required to work a skeleton-crew holiday generally receive compensatory time to use later, so the day functions as a floating benefit for much of the state workforce rather than a statewide closure.