East of the stadium, UT's campus is home to large archives and museums. Visitors can see a president's papers and a replica of the Oval Office, a 1930s museum started as part of the Texas Centennial, and a sports-history collection inside the stadium. This short loop links them and passes the university's biggest performance hall. Hours vary by site, and the LBJ Library charges admission, so plan ahead.
East of the stadium, the University of Texas keeps some of the richest collections in the state, and this short loop strings them together into a single afternoon of presidents, fossils, archives and athletes.
The headliner is the LBJ Presidential Library, a monumental travertine building by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, dedicated in May 1971 with both President Johnson and President Nixon on hand. The National Archives runs it in partnership with UT. On the top floor, a 7/8-scale Oval Office is furnished as it was during the Johnson years, and the plaza outside opens broad views across East Campus.
Nearby, the Texas Science & Natural History Museum occupies an Art Deco limestone building whose groundbreaking Franklin D. Roosevelt attended in 1936, during the Texas Centennial. Opened in 1939 as the Texas Memorial Museum and reopened under its current name in 2023, it still shows off fossils like the Onion Creek mosasaur. Sports fans will want to stop at the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center, an IOC-recognized research center built around Terry and Jan Todd's vast collection on physical training, tucked into the stadium's north end zone. History lovers can finish at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, whose collecting dates to 1883 and whose reading room is open to the public.
It's a compact walk with enough inside to fill a whole day.
The tour begins in Austin. Open Texas Roam to follow the full route stop by stop, with directions and audio narration as you go.
It is a self-guided walking tour: 5 stops, about 0.5 miles, ~30 min. Go at your own pace; the app keeps your place.
In Austin, Texas. The exact starting point, the full stop list and turn-by-turn directions are in the TexasRoam app.
Download TexasRoam for iPhone or iPad from the App Store. The tour is included with TexasRoam+. It is not available on the web map.
Go on a weekday during daytime hours, when the Stark Center galleries are open; buy LBJ Library tickets in advance and check each site's posted hours, since they vary.
Texas Roam guides you turn by turn through Austin with maps, audio narration and check-ins as you go — plus all 5 stops on this tour and every guided tour, hiking trail and historical marker across Texas. Get it on the App Store.
