Sam Rayburn Kept Coming Home to His Bonham Farm

Sam Rayburn spent 48 years in the U.S. House and 17 years as speaker, longer in that post than anyone else. Yet his refuge was a farm two miles west of Bonham, where he returned to familiar faces and work on the land.

Rayburn bought 121 acres in 1914 and finished the family's two-story clapboard house in 1916. He paid to have electric lines run to it in 1935. His favorite room became a small office whenever he came home from Washington.

The Texas Historical Commission now keeps the house with original furniture, photographs, farm buildings, and Rayburn's 1947 Cadillac, a gift paid for by 142 members of Congress. That mix of national power and an ordinary Fannin County home is the part of the story that stays with you.