Talk about feeling very small, while studing the history of this Famous Texas Ranch it made me understand that I do not have the knowledge as a writer or student to do justice to this great historical family treasure. The KING RANCH is larger than life, you just need to read the online information and story of this fantastic family operation as a ranch and business to even gert a glimpse of what it has meant to the State of Texas
I, am only going to cover a few details of the story because if I did try to cover the complete history from the very beginning we would be here all night. Just to state a few facts, the ranch at it's very largest was a true giant of a ranch being 1.2 million acres and now covering approximately 825,000 acres. It covers portions of six Texas counties most of Kleberg, much of Kenedy as well as portions of Brooks, Jim Wells, Nucses and Willacy Counties.
The story really starts in the mid 1830's with an eleven year old boy indentured by his destitute family to a jeweler in New York City. His desire for a much better life soon found him becoming a Captian for a steamboat line on the Alabama and Florida Rivers. From there moving to Texas and founding a steamboat business. He wanted more than just a steamboat business and he and his partner purchased the 15,000 acre Mexican land grant known as the Rincon de santa Gertudis- the first foothold of the legendary King Ranch.
You can take tours of the King Ranch today that covers a lot of the ranch history and how it developed into the legend it is. If there were a real kingdom in the ranching business this ranch would surely be crowned KING. The story starts with the above said purchase and continued to grow into a story that could be one of the best movies ever made.
I am going to list here just a few of the landmarks for this ranching giant. However if you have an interest in Texas or ranch history please go to www.kingranch.com and click on the many different headings. It will take a while to read the highlights to even get a small taste of this unbelievable story. Just a taste of information under Stewardship and Education is the fact that the family started Texas A&M Kingsville in 1917 as a college for teachers now a dynamic university, read more at www.tamuk.edu
The development of quality horses bread out of the wild horses of the area and becoming a leading producer of race horses as well as top cow horses. Among the better know horses was the 1946 Triple Crown winner Assault and the 1950 Kentucky Derby and Belmont winner Middleground. This information is just a taste of the strive for excellence and sets the tone for the rest of the story.
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