Santa Gertrudis, Headquarters of the King Ranch
Kingsville, Kleberg County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On this site, part of the De La Garza Santa Gertrudis land grant purchased by Captain Richard King in 1853, has stood each of the King Ranch headquarters. The first, an adobe jacal, was replaced by a frame cottage which later burned. Under the direction of Robert J. Kleberg, Sr., this house was designed by Carlton W. Adams for Mrs. Henrietta King. Completed in 1915, it is the family home of Captain King's descendants who are owners of the King Ranch.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This site, part of the De La Garza Santa Gertrudis land grant that Captain Richard King purchased in 1853, has held every headquarters of the legendary King Ranch. The first was a humble adobe jacal, followed by a frame cottage that later burned. Under Robert J. Kleberg, Sr., architect Carlton W. Adams designed the present house for Henrietta King, completed in 1915 and still the family home of Captain King's descendants who own the ranch.
Why it matters
As the nerve center of one of the largest and most influential ranches in America, Santa Gertrudis embodies the vast cattle empires that defined the settlement and mythology of South Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Richard King
- · Henrietta King
- · Robert J. Kleberg, Sr.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The King Ranch
Kingsville, TX
In 1853 Rio Grande steamboat captain Richard King bought two Spanish land grants on Santa Gertrudis Creek and began building what became the legendary King Ranch. Through drought, cattle thieves, and the Civil War—when the ranch funneled Confederate cotton to Mexico—King and his heirs bred longhorns into fortunes, pioneered the Santa Gertrudis cattle breed, and expanded the ranch to nearly a million acres.
Near Site of Hide and Tallow Plant ( King Ranch, 1866-69)
Kingsville, TX
Capt. Richard King launched this hide-and-tallow works in 1866 to help his ranch recover economically after the Civil War. With beef herds worth little at distant markets, King salvaged value from cull animals by rendering their tallow for soap and saving their hides for leather, boiling the fat in iron vats eighteen feet long on Santa Gertrudis Creek. The plant ran only a few years, but its vats lingered for half a century, and the site is still called "Matanza" — slaughter — pasture, worked today by descendants of the original hands.
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.
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.