Confessions of an RVer: KING RANCH

Who out there in Blog-land has never heard of the King Ranch please raise your hand? What???? You have never heard of the King Ranch???? Where have you been???

The King Ranch is one of the largest in the world. I have lived in Texas all my life and never visited the King Ranch, so yesterday, I decided to visit the King Ranch. They do tours everyday. You can go on the air conditioned bus tour which is about an hour or there is a wild animal tour. There are also night tours. Depending on the tour will determine the price. Our bus driver/tour guide was great and it was well worth the $15 ticket. I would imagine that all of the guides would be just as good.

Here's how the story starts:

In the mid-1830s, an eleven-year-old boy, Richard King, was indentured by his destitute family to a jeweler in New York City.

The jeweler was a difficult man and the boy, practically enslaved by him, was chafing under the man’s mistreatment. Nascent greatness would not be shackled or ever satisfied with such circumstances. At this tender age, the restless and adventuresome young Richard King made contacts on the Manhattan wharves and soon stowed away on a ship heading south – south toward his destiny.
Young Richard distinguished himself as a tireless worker and a fast learner with an ever-keen eye for opportunity. He rose quickly in the steam boating business on the Alabama and Florida rivers, becoming a captain. After moving to South Texas, he founded a steam boat line with his lifelong friend Mifflin Kenedy – setting up ports and moving goods and people along the lower Rio Grande River.

In the middle of the 19th century, Captain King traveled north from the Rio Grande to Corpus Christi. He traversed a region then known as the Wild Horse Desert and was captivated by it. His eye for an opportunity was at its sharpest when, after well over a hundred miles of riding over the wild lands, he and his party came to the cool, refreshing waters of Santa Gertrudis Creek. King saw that this place that nourished so much wildlife could also sustain domestic stock, and King’s vision for a great cattle ranch began to take shape.

He and business partner Gideon “Legs” Lewis purchased the 15,500-acre Mexican land grant then known as the Rincon de Santa Gertrudis – the first foothold of what would become the legendary King Ranch of Texas.

In the early days of the ranch there was a terrible drought in South Texas and Northern Mexico. Captain King traveled to the little hamlet of cruillas in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

The townspeople were in such dire straits that they sold all of their cattle to him in an attempt to survive the drought. A short distance out of town, slowly driving the cattle north toward Texas, Captain King realized that, in solving an immediate problem for the people of Cruillas, he had simultaneously removed their long-term means of livelihood. He turned his horse back toward the town and made its people a proposition. He would provide them with food, shelter and income if they would move and come to work on his ranch. The townspeople conferred and many of them agreed to move north with Captain King.

Already expert stockmen and horsemen, these resilient denizens of the rugged Mexican range became known as Los Kineños – King’s people. They and many generations of their heirs would go on to weave a large portion of the historical tapestry of King Ranch. The expert Kineño cowboys now occupy a justifiably legendary place in the annals of the taming of the vast American West. The mystique of the Kineños is alive and well, and descendants of the original Cruillas residents still live and work on the ranch today – providing a vital link with the past and giving the ranch a key aspect of its unique atmosphere. King even built a community (houses) for the Kineños' families to live and built schools for their children to attend. Some of the families still live in those communities on the ranch. A new school has been built and the old school has been turned into the court house in Kingsville.

By the end of the war between the states, King Ranch had grown to 146,000 acres – supporting thousands of head of cattle.

Getting these cattle to market was a real challenge, though, as some one thousand miles of dangerous wilderness stretched out between Captain King’s cattle and the midwestern railheads where they could be sold. Captain King’s domesticated longhorns were some of the very first hoof stock to comprise the early northward Texas cattle drives. Around this time, Captain King registered a brand that has since taken on mythic significance in the taming of the West – the famous “Running W”.

Richard King’s sense of adventure was rivaled only by his vision and ability to seize on new business opportunities. In addition to tirelessly working to improve the ranch, he invested in building railroads, packinghouses, ice plants and harbor improvements for the port of Corpus Christi. He was keen on creating the infrastructure that would get his product to market in the most efficient way possible. One of Captain King’s most important contributions to his ranch’s improvement was the outworking of his vision to improve his cattle and horse stock through an aggressive, thorough and studied upbreeding (breed improvement) program. By means of this program, King began to transform the hardscrabble longhorns and wild horses of his lands into the finest cattle and horses in Texas. Scientific upbreeding programs have been hallmarks of King Ranch since its inception, and they have paid off in spades.

The Civil War years found the resourceful Captain King thriving in his steamboat business by running the Union blockade, but his long-term vision was for the new ranch he was building. His bride Henrietta played an important role in guiding daily activities on the ranch when the Captain was away on business.

The 1860s were busy, challenging years for Richard King and his new bride Henrietta, the refined daughter of Presbyterian minister from back East. This refinement would become a hallmark of the remote ranch as weary wayfarers found, over the years, not only an impressive ranching operation, but an oasis of gentility and warm hospitality in the very midst of an otherwise wild and often hostile country.

During some legal proceedings in Corpus Christi in 1881, Captain King was so impressed with the opposing counsel that he sought him out after matters were settled. This young lawyer would soon be handling the lion’s share of the great rancher’s legal work. His interest would also light on a lovely young lady in the King household – the captain’s youngest daughter, Alice Gertrudis King. That young lawyer’s name was Robert Justus Kleberg, and he married Alice in 1886, during the year after Captain King’s death in 1885.

Robert Kleberg worked with Henrietta King, Captain King’s widow, to further develop and consolidate King Ranch. Among the many innovations for which he was responsible on the ranch, perhaps foremost among them were his efforts to drill for artesian water. These efforts paid off as Mr. Kleberg brought in a gusher of a water well in 1899, and then another and another – discovering a river of water running under the drought-prone rangelands. This discovery was a welcome end to a decade that started with a drought so severe it was known as “the great die-up.”

Robert J. Kleberg oversaw the building of cross fences that divided the vast acres into managed pastures. He established a concerted program to accelerate the breed improvement of horses and cattle on the ranch. He imported top equine stock and led efforts to develop a breed of cattle that could withstand the hot, harsh South Texas climate. He also initiated an aggressive mesquite-clearing program on the ranch.

The Texas Fever Tick created significant problems for the marketing of cattle from South Texas. Robert J. Kleberg designed the first cattle dipping vats to battle the tick. In addition to all of these accomplishments, Mr. Kleberg built a facility that was, for a time, the largest cattle rail operation in the world.

During this era, Robert J. Kleberg and Mrs. King continued to improve and diversify the assets of King Ranch with agricultural development, land sales, and town building projects. In 1904, their efforts were instrumental in helping to build the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway — as well as several towns along the newly laid track, including Kingsville. Before her death in 1925, Henrietta King had donated land and funds toward the construction of churches, libraries, and school projects (creating an oasis of community development) in this previously untamed land.

When their father’s health declined in the early twentieth century, two of the five children born to Robert J. and Alice King Kleberg assumed responsibility for the ranch. Richard Mifflin (Mr. Dick) Kleberg, Sr., who served as a seven-term member of the US Congress, handled the legal and financial aspects of the ranch. Robert Justus (Mr. Bob) Kleberg acted as head of the ranch’s operations and continued as President and CEO for the next fifty years.

It was during these transitional years that King Ranch made its name in animal husbandry. By crossbreeding Brahman bulls, native to India, with British Shorthorn stock, the ranch produced the Santa Gertrudis, recognized as the first American breed of beef cattle and the first cattle breed to be recognized in the world in more than a century. This breed of cattle continues to be recognized throughout the world for its fine beef quality and ability to withstand arid climates. Today, the Santa Gertrudis is the most prevalent cattle breed in Australia. The Santa Gertrudis beef had quite a bit of marble in it. When "the public" decided that marbled meat was not good for you, the King Ranch developed another new breed of cattle named the Santa Cruz. It is a cross breed of the Santa Gertrudis and the Red Angus. It is a much leaner beef.

This era also launched the famed King Ranch horse legacy. Acquiring and breeding superior foundation stallions, the King Ranch Quarter Horse program produced the number one registration (WIMPY) in the American Quarter Horse Association Stud Book and Registry, as well as the youngest horse (MR SAN PEPPY) ever to be inducted into the National Cutting Horse Association Hall of Fame. It was also at this time that King Ranch acquired the prized Thoroughbred stallions that went on to produce, among others, ASSAULT, 1946 winner of the prestigious Triple Crown, and MIDDLEGROUND, the 1950 winner of the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes.

For the country as well as the Klebergs, these were challenging years, plagued by debt, taxes, and an economy just emerging from the Great Depression. In 1934, Alice King Kleberg consolidated much of the ranch property into a corporation, with her children as stockholders. During the thirties the family successfully negotiated several long-term leases with Humble Oil and Refining Company (now ExxonMobil) for oil and gas rights to the 1.15 million acres of King Ranch property.

In 1940, Dick Kleberg, Jr., joined his father, Mr. Dick, and his uncle, Mr. Bob, in managing King Ranch. Together, they initiated a series of innovations that kept King Ranch successful and at the leading edge of the ranching industry.

This era saw the development of mechanized brush control methods and innovative corrals for working cattle. King Ranch also developed new and better grasses and began using mineral supplements to improve animal health. Modern game management and wildlife conservation practices were expanded, and continue to benefit the ranch today.

Oil and gas royalties drove another growth spurt for King Ranch during this period. After World War II, the ranch’s agricultural business was extended, in part to expand the national and global presence of the Santa Gertrudis breed. Acquisitions came through the purchase of property in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, and West Texas, and through joint ventures and partnerships in Florida. Management developed ranching operations overseas with land purchases in Argentina, Cuba, Brazil, Australia, Venezuela, Spain, and Morocco. The systematic and ambitious expansion of this period – in agriculture, energy, and real estate, together with expanded retail operations – created the platform for the business segments of King Ranch today.

The King Ranch today comprises 825,000 acres of land. After Fidel Castro seized and took possession of their land in Cuba, they started selling all of their foreign land and now only own land in the United States. The ranch was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

So, if you are ever in the vicinity of Kingsville, Texas. Go visit the King Ranch. It is very interesting and well worth the tour.

See the running W on the water tower

and on the flag.......

Mr. W and I

The chuckwagon

Mr. W practicing roping a cow :)

Some equipment that was developed to help clear brush on the ranch.

Santa Gertrudis cows

Arena where they use to have auctions. Did you know that cattle auctions are mostly held online through the internet now?

Backside of the arena. Once a year, they have the ranch hand breakfast here and they feed nearly 3,000 people. It also becomes a big festival for the entire city of Kingsville.