It was the first stream he had seen on the Wild Horse Desert. The land so impressed him that when he arrived at the fair, he and a friend, Texas Ranger Captain Gideon K.
Over time the ranch grew to 1. Some land was even purchased with the cattle on it. The first brand Richard King registered was one he designed himself that honored his wife Henrietta King. Robert Kleberg died in , signaling a complete generational shift in the ranch's management.
By that time, King Ranch had grown to well over a million acres in size and was home to 94, head of cattle and 4, horses and mules, the quality of which had become very high through selective breeding. When Mrs. King's estate was finally untangled, Kleberg's widow, Alice, and her children consolidated as much of the ranch as possible by purchasing the properties of other heirs.
In the Klebergs made King Ranch a corporation so that its future as a single entity would be more secure. To get the company back in the black, Kleberg turned to petroleum.
He negotiated a long-term lease for oil and gas rights on the entire ranch with Humble Oil and Refining Company, which later became Exxon. Meanwhile, brother Dick served the company from the outside as president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and, beginning in , as a seven-term member of the U. Beef was not the only thing King Ranch was able to breed successfully. Bob Kleberg, the driving force behind the program, also became interested in thoroughbred racing horses.
In he bought Kentucky Derby winner Bold Venture as a foundation sire for the ranch's thoroughbred breeding program. During the s and s, a number of innovations improved production and kept King Ranch at the cutting edge of the cattle industry. These innovations included mechanized brush control methods, the identification of new and better grasses, and the development of better corrals for working cattle.
Modern game management and preservation systems were also set up. In the s the company went international. By the company was sending livestock to outposts in Cuba and Australia in hopes of boosting production by introducing Santa Gertrudis genes into the mix.
The company eventually established a presence in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela, where the techniques developed to clear mesquite brush in Texas could be used on South American rain forest. Morocco and Spain soon followed as well. Dick Kleberg died in His son, Dick Jr. By the early s, King Ranch controlled about In Bob Kleberg died after managing the company's operations for more than half a century.
The Kleberg family's choice to replace him as president and chief executive officer of the company was James H. In choosing Clement to lead King Ranch into the next generation, the family passed over Robert Shelton, a vice-president and King relative who had been raised by Bob Kleberg. This snub, combined with legal haggling over oil payments to family members, led to Shelton's departure from the company a few years later.
During the s, Clement began to feel that the company had become unwieldy, and he started selling off chunks of King Ranch's overseas real estate. In Clement hired W. Yarborough to take control of King Ranch's oil and gas business. 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.
In , Dick Kleberg, Jr. 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. 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.
And throughout the West, the reshuffling rarely acknowledges first occupants even through Native place names abound. Rather than refer to these ranch workers as Tejanos, which emphasizes their deep roots in northern Mexico or south Texas, the relocation myth situates these workers as immigrants, along with Mr.
King, an immigrant of Irish heritage from New York City. Parallelling King and the Mexicans as immigrants places them on equal footing, and any suggestion of land appropriation even when legally purchased on the part of King is neatly averted. But the story is more complicated. Each of the four generations of King heirs who managed the ranch spoke Spanish, the language of working ranches in south Texas. Tejano culture and Anglo culture blended under such circumstances, and all ranch residents engaged within that blended culture.
One story, passed along in the Kleberg family, goes something like this. During the long reign of Robert Justus Kleberg, Jr. She opened a conversation by asking him if he worked there; he acknowledged that he did.
Kleberg, he work for King Ranch too" Cypher, Interviewed for an article in Texas Monthly , Janell Kleberg underscores an important distinction between attachment and ownership:. Everything belongs to the ranch, and the ranch belongs to the family.
Keeping the family and the ranch together is more important than any of us. They cannot reserve rooms in the "Big House," which now serves as an exclusive hotel where family members must book and pay for accommodations.
They cannot lease their homes from the corporation once they retire or their employment is terminated. And so in the 21st century, they find themselves removed from both job and their home when they are fired, quit, or reach retirement.
I have no access to current on-ranch residency numbers, but the total number of employees on the corporation payroll as of last year was , making the ranch the fourth largest employer in Kingsville Kingsville Economic Development Council. In the United States, most people live in housing that belong s to someone else, but commonly the discussion about the politics of landlords and tenants considers only urban places. In the rural West, the conversation continues to be dominated by the Cliven Bundy conversation, one that celebrates one kind of extra-legal inhabitation, while other kinds, such as that by "illegal aliens," are condemned.
When Stephen "Tio" Kleberg, the last family member to manage the R anch, was forced to resign by the Board of Directors on April 23, , a flurry of newspaper and magazine articles followed. The Kingsville newspaper, owned by King Ranch Corporation, covered the story in a cursory fashion as if copying a press release, but Kleberg and his wife gave interviews to Mary Lee Grant, a reporter from the nearby Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Of Kleberg, the reporter writes:. He says that he won't be working cattle or participating in roundups — the work he loved most.
But it's kind of a love-hate relationship. I love the people, but if I work here, who would I be helping? Grant, "A Corporate End". Another article quotes Bruce Cheeseman, archivist for the King Ranch:. I have this terrible feeling in my stomach and heart and head, that it has all been diminished. He is one of the most honest men I have ever known. He is a straight shooter. In this complicated world, honesty can get you in trouble.
Grant, "Clash" Livestock Weekly He was very sad, however, that his children could not look forward to the possibility of succeeding him. History will say how it turned out. The reporter ends the piece about Tio Kleberg by discussing how vital he was to day-to-day ranch operations and ranch history. It has destroyed years of evolution of a very special type of community.
Once it's gone, it can't be replaced. We have been treated vengefully and cruelly,'' she said. Tio was given no retirement. We have operated in a world of honor, a world where a man's handshake counted. Maybe we have been sheltered Grant, "We Went through the Days". When Kleberg was no longer employed at the R anch, the corporation allowed him to extend the lease on his home for several years, but not indefinitely.
Tio and Janell Kleberg continue to live in Kingsville and have an address that might be on the King Ranch, but county records show no privately-owned home of theirs on the tax rolls locatefamily. I feel like what Hunt is trying to do is erase history. Janell Kleberg voiced some of the issues involving the end of the patron system:.
I couldn't bear to see the people I had worked with for 28 years crying. Our lives have been so intertwined with these people,'' she said. She asked me if she should look for another job, if she should move into town. I don't know what to tell people. Grant, "We Went through the Days". Published in , Waiting for Dayligh t features Kleberg's thirty years of photographs while working cattle from horseback.
Family members on the King Ranch Board of Directors scrambled, as one family board member puts it, to "think of ways to engage them with the idea of what the ranch is and what it does" Gwynne, Although the corporation moved its headquarters to Houston in , the annual board meeting continues to be held at the R anch, along with a series of summer programs designed to engage the heirs enough in ranch life for them to want to keep it.
The King Ranch images used so prominently on the website and in the Ford Motor Company marketing promote a ranch vision that can keep the heirs devoted to the mythology, and thereby dedicated to the ranch itself. Apparently, the corporation needs to keep family members interested in the R anch while keeping them away from active management of the ranch. Beginning in the s, the board of directors has liquidated underperforming assets such as the Kentucky thoroughbred farm and the ranches in Spain, Morocco, Venezuela, Argentina, Australia, and Brazil, while it has distributed larger dividends to the shareholders family members so that there will be less temptation to sell the R anch as just one more underperforming asset.
For King Ranch to survive, it must instill a connection to the place deeper than a dividend check. It must be more to them than just marketable real estate. I just never thought it would happen to this one. Hollandsworth, 8. As Janell Kleberg put it, while describing a neighboring ranch founded, too, in the s:. It was so sad to see it like it is now, like a museum.
There were no cowboys. It was so quiet. But I could almost hear the cowboys. I hope there never comes a time when the King Ranch is like that. Because what this ranch is all about is the life that's associated with it. It's like Tio told the employees after he was fired. Ashton, John and Edgar P. Texas State Historical Association, 15 June Boone and Crockett Club, Broyles, William. Texas Monthly, Oct. Cavazos, Bobby. Cavazos, Lauro. Fox News, 15 April New York Times, 24 April Austin: U of Texas P, Tales of the Wild Horse Desert.
Crimm, A. Carolina Castillo. Austin: U of Texas P, n Cross, Kim. Grain-fed Beef Debate.
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