Karnack is a small-town in East Texas. From the beginning, there was one house, the Big House, which cast a shadow over all other houses in that area. It was the Taylor Mansion, it is today, as it was then.

C.K. Andrews constructed the house in 1843 after purchasing 600 acres. While he was owner of the house,  the first tragedy took place. A relative, perhaps a niece of Andrew's, was sitting in an upstairs room during a thunderstorm. The house was struck by lightning and the electrical current moved down the fireplace, near where the girl was sitting, and killed her instantly.

Later a man named Thomas Jefferson Taylor bought the house and turned it into a thriving 15,000-acre ranch. He was a self-made man, driven and prominent in that area of Texas, where he not only owned a huge ranch, but also ran two general stores in the near by small town of Karnack. This man was the father of Claudia Taylor the woman, who would one day be Lady Bird Johnson, wife of Lyndon Baines Johnson, President of the United States.

Some speculate that it is Lady Bird's mother who stays and haunts the old mansion. The second tragedy to take place in the house happened when Lady Bird was only five years old. Her young mother died suddenly after falling down the main staircase.