King Ranch history

In 1854 King brought north not only all of the cattle from one particular Mexican village suffering through a drought, but all of the village's humans as well.

Lewis had a way with the women, until an irate husband shot him to death in 1855, leaving King in need of a new partner.

Shortly after Chapman’s second transaction with King, in the summer of 1856, something happened that would forever cloud the circumstances of their business relationship.

In 1858 King built the first ranch house at the Santa Gertrudis site on a spot suggested by his friend Robert E. Lee, a young Lieutenant Colonel at the time.

In 1867 King began using the Running W brand to mark his cattle.

The King-Kenedy partnership dissolved in 1868.

The King Ranch name and its Running W brand, first used by Captain King 1869 when he became a sole proprietor, continue as one of the most widely recognized identities in the industry.

The Chapmans did not take nothing by their 1879 lawsuit.”

In her sworn statement of March 22, 1881, Helen Chapman offered a completely different view of her husband’s state of mind and financial circumstances during that period.

In April 1883, two years after her death, the district court judge for Nueces County signed a consent judgment reflecting a settlement of the suit.

In 1884 a young lawyer named Robert Kleberg began handling the legal affairs of King Ranch.

By the time of his death in 1885, Richard King had created a legacy that would become known, far and wide, as the birthplace of American ranching.

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.

The land for Kingsville was deeded by Henrietta King, and the city was laid out in 1904…

Beginning in about 1910, the ranch began to develop the breed of beef cattle known as Santa Gertrudis, which is part Brahman and part Shorthorn.

Kingsville Kingsville, city, seat (1913) of Kleberg county, southern Texas, United States It lies along the coastal plain, 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Corpus Christi and 153 miles (246 km) south of San Antonio.

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.

Meanwhile, brother Dick served the company from the outside as president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and, beginning in 1931, as a seven-term member of the United States Congress.

Robert Kleberg died in 1932, signaling a complete generational shift in the ranch's management.

Such power, such wealth gave the King Ranch a sense of entitlement. It set itself apart, like a feudal kingdom, or so many outsiders felt. “It is a pleasant fiction that the King Ranch is a part of the United States,” observed a Fortune writer in 1933.

In 1934, Alice King Kleberg consolidated much of the ranch property into a corporation, with her children as stockholders.

In 1935 the Klebergs made King Ranch a corporation so that its future as a single entity would be more secure.

In 1938 he bought Kentucky Derby winner Bold Venture as a foundation sire for the ranch's thoroughbred breeding program.

In 1940, Dick Kleberg, Jr., joined his father, Mr.

Thoroughbred ASSAULT foaled on the Ranch; in 1946 ASSAULT wins the Triple Crown.

By the 1950’s, a full century after the first glimmerings of greatness at Santa Gertrudis, the King Ranch reigned first among its kind in the world.

By 1952 the company was sending livestock to outposts in Cuba and Australia in hopes of boosting production by introducing Santa Gertrudis genes into the mix.

Dick Kleberg died in 1955.

In 1974 Bob Kleberg died after managing the company's operations for more than half a century.

Dick Kleberg Jr. died in 1979, and soon after that his son, Stephen "Tio" Kleberg, took over management of King Ranch South Texas, the company's core ranch operation.

A couple of years earlier, in 1984, he had taken his eldest daughter on a vacation to Mexico City, where they had stayed at the Hotel Majestic, an old colonial establishment in the heart of the city with a rooftop restaurant that afforded a grand view of the Zócalo below.

A couple months later, Abraham Zaleznik, a King Ranch director since 1988, replaced the retiring Denman as chairman of the board.

By late 1989, Coker had completed a draft ready to be sent out for peer review, a standard practice whereby academic presses seek the expertise of scholars to evaluate a prospective manuscript.

After his departure, Roger Jarvis, who had been running the company's petroleum operations, was named president and CEO. Leroy Denman, a longtime company affiliate, was elected chairman of the board in 1990.

And in that interview with the press back in 1992, Cheeseman had made a remark that would prove damaging to him and King Ranch, Inc.

King Ranch, Inc., et al., Appellees, was filed in the Twenty-eighth District Court in Corpus Christi on April 20, 1995.

On January 5 and January 13, 1998, the court released a summary judgment against the Chapman plaintiffs and in favor of King Ranch, Inc.