Alice's Box 13 sits inside an 87-vote Senate story

A Senate race came down to a few dozen votes in 1948. Lyndon Johnson's final margin was 87. That was close enough to earn him the lasting nickname 'Landslide Lyndon.'

Jim Wells County entered the story through Alice's Box 13. The LBJ Presidential Library keeps interviews and papers from a later inquiry into the count. Its archive shows how fierce the dispute became. It does not make every old claim a settled fact.

The careful local version is interesting on its own. A ballot box from Alice became tied to a razor-close Senate race, and historians still return to its records.