Kingsville

We’re starting back towards Dallas where we hand back the camper in a week’s time. Kingsville is on the route so we stop here to see one of the biggest ranches in the USA, the King ranch, weighing in at 825,000 acres.

Richard King the founder was born in 1824.  At the age of 11 he ran away to sea as a stowaway. On discovery, he persuaded the captain to make him cabin boy. Although with little formal education, he was smart, and by the age of 21 was a captain in his own right. By 24 he owned his own boat and traded profitably along the Rio Grande River in partnership with several others.

In 1852 King came north on horseback to the Lone State Fair in Corpus Christi and noted that the only water he passed was at a Santa Gertrudis Creek. He thought it would be an ideal location for cattle raising. The next year, with a partner called Lewis, he bought 15,500 acres at 2 cents an acre. In 1855 Lewis was shot following a romantic dispute and King bought Lewis’ share from his estate. The accumulation of land had begun.

This is the creek that drew King to buy his first acres.

The earliest surviving ranch building is in elegant Spanish style. Many of King’s workers were Hispanic, a whole Mexican village having been recruited early on to work on the ranch.

We took a tour of the ranch- obviously only a small section- which promised to give an idea of how it was run and their types of cattle and horses. Unfortunately, the size of even this small part proved its undoing as, in most instances, the animals appeared as tiny dots on the far side of enormous fields. Texas is generally flat and this region is no exception, so not much scenery either. Rather like driving through the fens.

Well, we did see a Weaver’s cottage where the horse saddle blankets were made until recently, and the loom. It took about a week to make each one. Presumably the Chinese now make them for a fraction of the price.

This is an odd patent, a gate that shuts itself but whacks the tail of your vehicle if you drive through too fast. It’s a way of regulating the impatience of the many contractors and visitors to the ranch.

 This giant catapult- it’s about 10 feet tall- is what cowboys used for securing a lassoed cow. The rope goes through the “Y” and is tied to the upright. 

There were some good wild deer views. Ironic that the wild animals were more visible than the cattle and horses.

To cater for American tastes they allow hunting on the ranch, and in front of some of the estate cottages the hunters have built rather gruesome towers of antlers.

 Heavy machinery is used to clear the scrub every 10 years, and for the crop production, but the cattle are still managed by cowboys on horseback. The horses, called quarter horses, are specially bred for cattle work. A film before the tour showed the prize-winning King quarter horses in action cutting out single cattle from the herd. It would have been good to see these horses close-up, but the tour bus sped by so a faraway shot is where it’s at. They could be milkmen’s horses at this distance.

The ranch also breeds champion cattle and registered the first new American breed in 1940, the Santa Gertrudis. The cattle photos on the range look like just any other cows, but there are mounted Santa Gertrudis bulls heads in the museum that are more impressive, as if they had charged through the wall together.

The Ranch was reasonably Interesting, but could have been much more so given closer views of the animals, and with stops to do so, accompanied by a more relevant and enthusiastic commentary from the guide. Only 2 out of 5 stars I’m afraid.