Monday, August 21, 2023 - 10:51am
By Andrew Fitzgerald, Education Intern, Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site
No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle. —Winston Churchill
Few items are more important for a cowboy than his saddle. A quality saddle immediately assures greater comfort for both horse and rider on long journeys; it has also been proven that a properly crafted and fitted saddle is...
Wednesday, July 12, 2023 - 3:21pm
By Margo McCutcheon, Educator, Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site
Some people have china cabinets that they use to display their fine china or other dinnerware. Maybe they collect the china they display, or perhaps the china was a family heirloom. Whatever the reason may be, that single china cabinet might be all a person needs to show off the things that they love.
Sam “Mr...
Wednesday, April 26, 2023 - 1:47pm
By Andrew Fitzgerald, Education Intern, Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site
Nearly every Texan has, at one point or another, owned a pair of cowboy boots. They have become a symbol of the state and its rugged Western history. Big Tex sports a size-70 pair of custom Lucchese boots as he greets visitors to the State Fair of Texas, and movie cowboy John Wayne popularized the “square-...
Friday, March 10, 2023 - 9:55am
By Margo McCutcheon, Educator, Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site
If you ever tell someone that you think you were born in the wrong era and that you’d rather live at some point in the past, you might take a minute or two in your actual timeline to consider all the factors surrounding that era of the past you think you’re so fond of. Being from Texas, I suggest one of those factors...
Friday, February 10, 2023 - 10:22am
By Margo McCutcheon, Educator, Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site
Many of us have items made in another country. Trade between parties near and far isn’t a new phenomenon, as the vague school memories of the Silk Road tickling your brain right now can attest. Refusing to go against basic human nature, the Rayburn family acquired things made in other places around the world because...
Monday, December 19, 2022 - 11:59am
By Margo McCutcheon, Educator at the Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site
Sam “Mr. Sam” Rayburn was alive just 61 years ago. To some people, that may seem akin to a million years ago, but historically speaking, it’s just a blip on a very large radar. That’s such a short while ago, really, that some visitors to the Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site share personal stories about Mr....
Monday, October 10, 2022 - 4:01pm
By Brooklyn Pfennig, Intern at the Sam Rayburn House
On summer days, especially those of late July, with its 100-degree weather and blistering sunshine, I love to reminisce and think of the days of March and April when it rains. I find myself on days like those curled up with a blanket and a delightful book, listening to the weather outside and immersing myself in wherever the book...
Monday, September 19, 2022 - 8:27am
By Kirby McLeod, Intern at the Sam Rayburn House
Biographers D.B. Hardeman and Donald Bacon recall a meeting with Sam “Mr. Sam” Rayburn in December of 1956. On the day in question, the biographers note the lunch prepared by Medibel Bartley and Martha Rayburn Thomas (longtime cook Bobbie Erskine Phillips had passed away earlier in the year) consisted of fried pork shoulder, pork sausage...
Thursday, August 25, 2022 - 1:03pm
By Margo McCutcheon, Site Educator at the Sam Rayburn House
Whether they have researched him on their own time or have traveled to his historic home site for a tour, most people agree there was a lot to respect about Sam “Mr. Sam” Rayburn. He was a professional politician who supported his political party’s decisions whether he personally agreed with those decisions or not.
He...
Monday, May 16, 2022 - 8:46am
On Thursday, February 17, the Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site and the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History’s Sam Rayburn Museum in Bonham teamed up for an in-depth webinar exploring the life and career of one of the most influential Americans in the 20th Century.
Quite possibly the most formidable political duo of the 20th Century, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson were a...
