The Rise and Fall of America's Richest Ranch Empire: King Ranch, Texas

In 1853, a runaway orphan turned Rio Grande steamboat captain paid three hundred dollars for fifteen thousand acres of South Texas desert and began building the largest ranch in the United States. Richard King followed one piece of advice his entire life — Robert E. Lee's command to buy land and never sell — and by the time he died at the Menger Hotel in San Antonio in 1885, he owned more than half a million acres and owed half a million dollars in debt. His widow Henrietta, a preacher's daughter, refused to sell. She doubled the ranch to over a million acres, founded the town of Kingsville, built its railroad, and died in 1925 as one of the richest women in the world. Their grandson Bob Kleberg saved the empire from Depression-era bankruptcy by signing the largest private oil lease in American history with Humble Oil — the company that became Exxon — then invented the Santa Gertrudis, the first new breed of beef cattle developed in the Americas, and bred a crippled colt named Assault who won the 1946 Triple Crown. When Kleberg died in 1974 after fifty-six years of autocratic rule, the family turned on itself. Buyouts, lawsuits, and a hundred million dollars in debt dismantled the feudal world that King Ranch had been for over a century, and the Kineños — the Mexican cowboy families who had worked the ranch since 1854 — were let go by the hundreds. The Running W brand, first burned onto a longhorn steer in 1869, now appears on Ford trucks. The land is still there. What it means is a different question. Sources Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas Online — entries on King Ranch, Richard King, Henrietta Chamberlain King, Robert Justus Kleberg Jr., Santa Gertrudis cattle, and Kingsville, TX (tshaonline.org) S. C. Gwynne, "The Next Frontier," and Skip Hollandsworth, "When We Were Kings," Texas Monthly American Oil & Gas Historical Society, "Oil Reigns at King Ranch" (aoghs.org) King Ranch official history and archives (king-ranch.com) Texas Legislature, Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 15, 84th Session (2015) — recognizing the centennial of the King Ranch Main House, with architectural and historical details National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, Assault entry; Blood-Horse magazine, Triple Crown coverage (June 8, 1946)