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In recent years, Brazos-Tenth has acquired about $1,000,000 worth of stock in nine Texas banks. In one recent case, ownership of a thriving little bank, Moore State Bank in Llano, Texas, changed hands after two big blocks of stock were sold—749 shares to Moursund's mother, 749 to Brazos-Tenth. Those shares constituted controlling interest in the bank, and one Moore State stockholder said later: "After the transaction was closed, Mr. Johnson spoke of it to me at a party and thanked me for selling."
Bock to the Land. The Johnsons—as individuals, as corporate entities or through agents—have also acquired sizable amounts of Texas land, most of it since 1960. According to LIFE'S accounting, the family owns eight ranches estimated at a value of $1,250,000; resort and residential property (including 200 acres of prized Austin property, some selling as high as $30,000 an acre) worth about $2,250,800; Alabama land worth about $100,000.
An official accounting of the Johnson family's full fortune, disclosed by Trustee Moursund, indicates that the President personally owns about $400,000 in municipal bonds, ranch land, lake property, livestock and cash. Mrs. Johnson's holdings add up to $2,500,000—the great bulk of it ($2,030,000) in Texas Broadcasting Corp. stock. And the Johnson daughters, Lynda Bird, 20, and Luci Baines, 17, each hold $630,000 in Texas Broadcasting stock and real estate. That totals $4,160,000 for the family.
Those figures are based largely on book values. Full market value is something else. The broadcast properties, for example, could well fetch $8 or $9 million today; real estate, around $3.5 million; cash and municipal bonds, $500,000; miscellaneous personal property, $400,000—a presidential fortune, all told, of about $13 or $14 million.
* Lyndon and Lady Bird put all their holdings in trust when Johnson assumed the presidency; neither has any say in the operation of the trust.