Martha (Reagan) Rabb (February 25, 1826-March 20, 1901)
Robstown, Nueces County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Martha Reagan moved with her parents from Tennessee to Fayette County, Texas where she met and married John Rabb (1825-1872). In 1857, John and Martha moved their family to Nueces County and settled near Banquete, where John pursued cattle ranching under the Bow and Arrow brand. Rabb raised far more cattle than his ranch land could support by running his herds on the open range. He became one of the most successful cattlemen in the area, owning more than 10,000 head of cattle when he died in 1872. When Martha assumed control of the business, she took it in a dramatically different direction. Forseeing the end of the free-range era, she capitalized on the panic and flight caused by violent raids along the Nueces strip and aggressively began to buy land here in 1875. Within a year, she owned more than 43,000 acres, some of which she bought for as little as 37 cents per acre. Enclosed within 40 miles of fence, the Rabb Ranch included this site and stretched from north of Robstown south to Driscoll, and was bordered on the west by the Petronilla and Banquete Creeks and on the east by present-day Callicoate Road (FM 1694). She became known as a "Texas Cattle Queen." (1992)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Martha Reagan Rabb (1826–1901) came to Texas from Tennessee and, with her husband John, built a successful open-range cattle operation near Banquete under the Bow and Arrow brand. When John died in 1872 leaving more than 10,000 head, Martha took the reins and changed course entirely—foreseeing the end of the free range, she bought land aggressively during the panic of the raid-plagued Nueces strip. Within a year she owned over 43,000 fenced acres, earning her the title "Texas Cattle Queen."
Why it matters
Rabb's shrewd pivot from open range to fenced ownership made her one of the era's great cattlewomen, a rare woman commanding a South Texas ranching empire.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Martha Rabb
- · John Rabb
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Cattle Drives from South Texas
Corpus Christi, TX
By 1840 tens of thousands of wild longhorns roamed the brush country between the Rio Grande and the Gulf, so plentiful they were nearly worthless to the Texans who owned them. Ranchers began trailing small herds toward distant markets — New Orleans, Missouri, Ohio, even California and Chicago — but the real boom came after the Civil War, when hungry Northern cities and advancing railroads finally made the long drives pay. Feeder trails near here fed the great Chisholm and Dodge City routes to the Kansas railheads, and by 1880 some four million head had gone up the trail.
Bishop
Bishop, TX
F. Z. Bishop founded this town in 1910 on land bought from the Driscoll Ranch, staking it on both sides of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico railroad and dreaming of a model city on the prairie. He designed a uniform brick business district, planted 600 palm trees, laid miles of sidewalks, and planned a park with a lake and band pavilion; the town reached 1,000 residents within two years and incorporated in 1912. Though Bishop went bankrupt in 1916, the community endured, and mid-century oil and gas discoveries pushed petroleum past agriculture as its economic base.
Richard and Minerva King House
Corpus Christi, TX
Built in 1928 on a bluff above Corpus Christi Bay, this brick Italian Renaissance home was raised by Richard King, grandson of the King Ranch's founder, after a 1919 hurricane destroyed his earlier house. A banker, King helped finance the city's new deep-water port and bring the naval air station to town, while Minerva King made the home a hub of civic and musical organizations. Designed to withstand hurricanes, it was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 2016.
Sidbury House
Corpus Christi, TX
Charlotte Scott Sidbury (1830–1904), a North Carolina native who came to Texas before the Revolution, built this Victorian house around 1893. A civic leader and bank director, she took over her late husband's lumber company and constructed rental houses during the 'Ropes boom,' when Colonel E.H. Ropes tried and failed to dredge Corpus Christi into a deep-water port. The elaborately galleried structure was later home to Padre Island rancher Patrick Dunn and was moved to Old Irishtown in 1926.