President William Howard Taft Visits Taft
Taft, San Patricio County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1908, Charles P. Taft, director of the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company (also known as Taft Ranch) extended an invitation to his half-brother, newly-elected President William Howard Taft, to visit the 165,000-acre Taft Ranch and the Taft community. The President agreed to come in October 1909. Charles Taft and ranch manager Joseph F. Green immediately began preparations for the event. Green had a nine-hole golf course built at La Quinta, his estate near Gregory where the President would stay during his visit. He also built the 22-room Green Hotel in Gregory to house the press corps and additional visitors. President Taft's special railroad car arrived in Gregory on October 20, 1909. An automobile procession took the presidential party to La Quinta, where they were greeted by Texas Governor Thomas M. Campbell. The following day the President visited Taft, where he spoke to citizens assembled at the local school and enjoyed ice cream at the company creamery. A barbeque and rodeo were held at the Rincon Ranch in the President's honor, and he later visited Corpus Christi, where he spoke to a crowd of 15,000 people. (1991)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1908 Charles P. Taft, a director of the sprawling 165,000-acre Taft Ranch, invited his half-brother, President-elect William Howard Taft, to visit the Gulf Coast community that bore the family name. Elaborate preparations followed—a nine-hole golf course and a 22-room hotel for the press—and in October 1909 the President's railroad car arrived, met by the Texas governor. Taft toured the town, spoke at the school, ate ice cream at the company creamery, and enjoyed a barbecue and rodeo held in his honor before addressing a crowd of 15,000 in Corpus Christi.
Why it matters
The visit shows how a sitting president's tour could put a company-owned ranch town on the national map, blending Gulf Coast ranching with Gilded Age family power.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1900s, the coastal plains around Corpus Christi Bay were cattle country turning into farm country. Huge ranches covered the land, and some were owned by investors and companies rather than single families. Railroads were opening the area to new settlers, and ranch owners were starting to sell land to farmers and build towns, creameries and gins.
Nationally, this was the Progressive Era. William Howard Taft had just won the 1908 presidential election as Theodore Roosevelt's chosen successor. Presidents traveled by private railroad car in those days, and a long tour could bring the nation's leader to places that had never seen a president up close.
A presidential visit was a huge event for a small Texas town. It meant newspapers, crowds, dignitaries and national attention, which was just the kind of publicity a young community trying to attract settlers could use.
People & events
This visit was a family affair. Charles P. Taft was a director of the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company, which people also called the Taft Ranch, a spread of about 165,000 acres. In 1908 he invited his half-brother, the newly elected President William Howard Taft, to come see the ranch and the town that carried the family name. The President agreed to come in October 1909.
Ranch manager Joseph F. Green did most of the hosting. Taft famously loved golf, so Green had a nine-hole course built at La Quinta, his estate near Gregory, where the President would stay. He also built the 22-room Green Hotel in Gregory to house the reporters and other guests who traveled with a president.
The President's special railroad car arrived in Gregory on October 20, 1909. A line of automobiles, still a novelty in rural Texas, carried the party to La Quinta, where Texas Governor Thomas M. Campbell greeted them. The next day Taft visited the town of Taft, spoke to people gathered at the school, and had ice cream at the company creamery. A barbecue and rodeo followed at the Rincon Ranch. Then the President went on to Corpus Christi, where about 15,000 people came to hear him speak.
Its place in the American story
Taft's 1909 visit came during a long presidential tour through the West and Southwest, when presidents were using the railroad to see and be seen far from Washington. His stop on the Texas Gulf Coast shows how the presidency was reaching out to regions that had long felt far from national power.
The story also shows how the Gilded Age and Progressive Era really worked. Wealthy families and investors shaped huge areas of land, and those same families moved in the highest political circles. A company ranch in South Texas could get a presidential visit because its director was the President's brother. That mix of private enterprise, family ties and public office runs all through American history.
The visit also helped put this part of the coast on the map. Crowds, newspaper coverage and a governor's welcome told the country that the Coastal Bend was ready for settlers and business.
If you visit
Today Taft is a small South Texas town, and the marker is your way into a day when the whole community turned out for a president. As you stand here, picture the school gathering and a sitting president enjoying a dish of ice cream from the local creamery.
This stop pairs easily with a drive around Corpus Christi Bay. Nearby Gregory was the President's base during the visit, and Corpus Christi, where he spoke to thousands, is a short drive away. Together they let you follow the rough outline of Taft's 1909 route.
The flat, open land around town still gives you a feel for the ranch country that once belonged to the Taft Ranch. If you're traveling with kids, the ice cream detail is a fun hook. It's a good excuse for a treat of your own down the road.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · William Howard Taft
- · Charles P. Taft
- · Joseph F. Green
- · Thomas M. Campbell
Related events
- · President Taft's 1909 visit to Taft
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company
Taft, TX
Organized in 1879 from an earlier cattle partnership, the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company ran 167,000 acres of South Texas range and pioneered fencing the open range and shipping cattle by boat from its own wharves. Financial troubles passed control to Ohio investor David Sinton, whose son-in-law Charles P. Taft lent the ranch its name; under manager Joseph F. Green it became one of the state's largest and most innovative operations. The company town of Taft, platted in 1904, outlived the ranch, whose enterprises were sold off by 1928.
First United Methodist Church of Taft
Taft, TX
Organized in December 1910 as part of a circuit spanning Taft, Gregory, Portland and Ingleside, this Methodist congregation shared halls and school buildings with local Presbyterians before erecting the first permanent church in Taft in 1921 on land given by the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company. The two denominations parted in 1923, and a new Methodist building followed in 1924, with a fresh sanctuary opening on Easter Sunday, 1949. Its members even pooled scarce funds to help launch Southern Methodist University in 1911.
Sodville Community
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In 1907–08 an Iowa land developer partnered with the vast Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company to market 56,000 acres of South Texas brushland to Midwestern buyers, and Mexican migrant laborers cleared mesquite so thick that prospects had to blaze their own trails. The settlement that grew here took the promotional name Sodville for its fertile soil, sprouting a school, stores, cotton gins, and churches through the 1910s and 1920s. As rural Texans drifted toward cities after mid-century, its school consolidated, its stores closed, and by 2000 only a corner and a few homes remained.
Site of West Portland
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After the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad reached this area in the 1880s, a 1908 land deal handed 14,000 acres to an Iowa promoter who mounted a huge advertising campaign, drawing trainloads of prospective buyers—mostly from Kansas—to settle West Portland. Mexican migrant workers cleared the mesquite and farmers worked the rich black soil, building a school that doubled as a community center and, in 1922, a cooperative cotton gin that became the heart of the district. The school consolidated with Taft in 1939, but descendants of the original settlers still own much of the land.