king ranch family tree

Tio told me that he was so distraught at the hospital that he picked up the phone, called Hunt in Houston, and shouted, Jack, Scott Wrights dead, and I hope youre happy. Then he slammed down the phone. The times he spoke at family meetings, he would say that it was up to the family to preserve the ranchs heritage. Sarah, who grew up a tomboy and wanted only to ranch. Its little wonder that the Ford Motor Company licenses the King Ranch name for upscale variants of its F-Series trucks. He specifically denied that Tio called him after Scott Wrights death. King married Henrietta M. Chamberlain on December 10, 1854 in Brownsville, Texas. Her daughters, Ida Louise (Illa) and Henrietta (Etta), married two of the men who run the ranch today, Jim Clement and John Armstrong (Tom Armstrongs nephew), now in their sixties. Using the oil wealth he had secured, Bob expanded the ranch to millions of acres around the world. For six generations, the King Ranch has remained in the hands of one family: the descendants of Richard King. Various Kleberg descendants have made names for themselves in the public sector. At a good-bye party for Tio, one old man wept and said, Who will take care of us now? [1] While serving in the end of the Second Seminole War in 1842, he met Mifflin Kenedy, who would later become his partner. Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke bought Waggoner Ranch this summer, according to Forbes, and though the terms of the sale werent disclosed, the nearly-800-square-mile property was listed at $725 million. It is a struggle that has changed them, divided them, and perhaps even separated them from the very ideals that once made the King Ranch so great. Tio says that during his tenure, only one family member ever came, and he was someone who was looking for tips on how to run his own ranch. How, on a ranch where the bonds of family meant so much, could its most loyal son be deposed? Since his death in 1885, there has always been a family member in charge of. Although Richard King never accumulated all the land he wanted, he owned more than 600,000 acres at his death, which he left to his wife, Henrietta. Under his management, the King Ranch became the greatest beef-producing operation in the United States. There are still members of this family that hate the idea that we farm on this ranch, and there are some whod like for the ranch to be one big pristine national wildlife preserve, barely touched by human hands., Regardless of family disputes, says Bruce Cheeseman, I always assumed that the family felt a sense of gratitude to Tio and Janell for being part of the community and for staying there during the entire godforsaken summer while everyone else got to live elsewhere and take vacations and cash their dividend checks. They had 5 children, Nettie, Ella, Richard, Alice Gertrude, and Robert E. Lee, the latter named for the King family friend, Robert E. Lee. The rainfall is viciously unpredictable, the droughts are frequent, and the grass is so sparse that a South Texas rancher needs about twenty acres to feed one cow. One day they might be carrying laptop computers in their saddlebags to keep track of the cattle inventory. The town of Kingsville, Texas is named for King. Captain Kings domesticated longhorns were some of the very first hoof stock to comprise the early northward Texas cattle drives. He arrived just before the start of a new era. But now all he could do was stand with his painting, smiling graciously with his wife, listening to the applause go on and on. The boy who started as an impoverished, indentured jewelers apprentice became and adventuresome, hard working and visionary businessman who, by the time of his death in 1885, had made his indelible mark on the landscape and taken his place as a titan among the ranks of the tamers of the Texas range. Following the war, King removed to Matamoros, until he was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson. King also privately funded operations of the Texas rangers, particularly the "Special Force" under Leander H. McNelly, and donated $4,000 for a monument to McNelly upon McNelly's death. At some 825,000 acres (3,340 km 2; 1,289 sq mi) [3] it is larger than the state of Rhode Island and country of Luxembourg. Tio said that he had no inkling he was going to be fired when he was asked to come to Houston to meet Hunt and Zaleznik. Today there are other ranches in the world that take up more territory and produce more beef, but there is no ranch more famous than the King Ranch. Maybe that was the reason, some of the cattle managers guessed, that their boss, Stephen J. Tio and Janell were riding on horseback in a pasture that looked like someplace in California, where it turned out that the artist lived. Soon, phones were ringing around the state: The last of the legendary Kleberg patrones had been ousted by the chief executive officer of King Ranch, Inc., Jack Hunt, an astute business executive who had been brought in three years earlier from California to oversee the entire multimillion-dollar King Ranch operation and its varied business ventures, from a citrus grove in Florida to platform oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico. Taylor Prewitt is the newsletter editor for Texas Monthly. Copyright 2023 Market Realist. Because of the luck of inheritance, the ranchs largest individual stock holder, with between 5 and 10 percent of the stock, was Richard Sugden, a doctor in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Taking a huge gamble, Tio hired breeding experts and budgeted about $4 million for fertility studies, DNA mapping, and breeding programs. Cause of death: Stomach cancer - Apr 14 1885, Chamberlain Cemetery, Kingsville, Texas, United States, New York City, New York County, New York, United States, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, United States, Chamberlain Cemetery, Kingsville, Kleberg County, Texas, United States, Kingsville, Kleberg County, Texas, United States. They kept clapping, perhaps because they were not sure what else to do at such an awkward moment. He brings in a new lawyer from Corpus Christi, Robert Justus Kleberg. Since the death of Captain King, the ranch has been run by an in-law (Robert Kleberg, Sr.) in the second generation, a younger brother (Bob Kleberg) in the third, and an in-law (Jim Clement) in the fourth. (Around campfires at the ranch in the summers, Kleberg would tell his grandchildren, Do what you can with the ranch, but above all, keep the family together.) Yet neither Clement nor Alexandersophisticated young businessmen, adept at corporate affairswas particularly interested in cattle ranching. Born in New York City into a poor Irish family, King was indentured as an apprentice to a jeweler in Manhattan at the age of nine. When she died, he received all of her stock. Thanks to the sale of the W.T. In 1995 the committee found Jack Hunt, the head of the publicly held Tejon Ranch Company in California, a 270,000-acre operation that involved commercial real estate, farming, recreation, mineral extraction, and ranching (14,000 head of cattle). This era saw the development of mechanized brush control methods and innovative corrals for working cattle. He believed a family leader should be there to answer the phone in the middle of the night if there was a problem. For the country as well as the Klebergs, these were challenging years, plagued by debt, taxes, and an economy just emerging from the Great Depression. Richard Mifflin (Mr. Dick) Kleberg, Sr., who served as a seven-term member of the US Congress, handled the legal and financial aspects of the ranch. All Rights Reserved. This young lawyer would soon be handling the lions share of the great ranchers legal work. There are no more cow camps (everyone drives back to his home in a pickup at the end of the day), no more chuck wagons (the cowboys bring their own sack lunches to work), and no more wood-burning fires to heat the famed Running W branding irons (the cowboys now plug their branding irons into electrical outlets). But Hunt did not hesitate to challenge Tios judgment. The companys only significant purchase was a 5 percent interest in a small bio-tech firm in California that makes environmentally friendly pesticides. Other heirs, however, could persuasively argue that by embracing Jack Hunt, who might turn the King Ranch into an even bigger corporate Goliath, the family is doing exactly what the family has done in the past: whatever it takes to keep the ranch from going broke. He seemed unusually serious when he and his wife, Janell, arrived outside the stables, where he had asked everyone to gather. Another owned a contemporary art gallery in San Antonio. Houston, TX 77056 (Another fifth-generation family member, Martin Clement, who lived in Kingsville, supervised the Big House, which was used as a lodge for visiting family members and special guests.) When Henrietta King died in 1925, the ranchs 1.2 million acres were divided among her heirs. And in such a corporation, where success is gauged on the financial returns of its investments, a familys heritage only goes so far. Hunt had spent some of his youth in Texas and had worked as an executive for a large family-owned ranching company in the Panhandle. In the 1930s, after years of meticulously crossbreeding Brahmans and Shorthorns, he introduced the dark-red Santa Gertrudis. Nothing shows more Texas pride than protecting our lands. One heir became a professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1850, following the war, King, Kenedy and two other partners formed the M. Kenedy and Company steamboat firm, renamed in 1866 to King, Kenedy and Company when the two other partners where bought out. By the 1870s, Kings outfit, R. King and Company, was sending tens of thousands of cattle north on the trails. The Texas Fever Tick created significant problems for the marketing of cattle from South Texas. One time she wrote about sports. Among the many innovations for which he was responsible on the ranch, perhaps foremost among them were his efforts to drill for artesian water. Jay, a conservationist and filmmaker, is running for state land commissioner, hoping to succeed current commissioner George P. Bush, whos running for attorney general. (Because of the ranchs reputation as a paradise for trophy wildlifeit is home to white-tailed deer, Nilgai antelope, quail, and feral hogscorporations such as Dresser Industries and Triton Energy were willing to spend $8 an acre for a lease, sharing the scrubland with the cattle.) In his direct, ranch-raised speaking style, he liked to talk about doin things the King Ranch waydoin it right, doin it with quality. He made a point of riding horseback through every pasture. Others thought he wasnt controlling the hunting program adequately, and a few believed that he should have developed a better quarter horse breeding program. He focused on getting rid of the businesses that were faltering, such as the companys cotton warehouse in Galveston, a lumberyard in Kingsville, and a horse farm in Kentucky. He gave personal loans to the Kineos, took their kids to the doctor, and worked every day of the week. Since 1971 he had been at every roundup, threading his horse in out and of the milling cattle, his experienced eye looking for those cows that should be kept for breeding and those that should be shipped off for sale. Tio was not a saint. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. The land itself roams over "six counties, is divided into four parcels." For a century and a half, it has remained an almost mythic symbol of wealth and power, its great white 27-room Big House at the ranch headquarters looming over the surrounding pastures like some feudal castle. Management developed ranching operations overseas with land purchases in Argentina, Cuba, Brazil, Australia, Venezuela, Spain, and Morocco. Many, including Tios two brothers, moved to the more exclusive neighborhoods of Texas cities and made their living as investors or venture capitalists. Once upon a time, their ranch was the grandest, not only in Texas but also in the world, captained by visionaries and bound by blood. Want to Buy a West Texas Ghost Town? At family meetings Tio said that the ranch should become more of what he called a resource-management business as opposed to strictly a cattle business. Most of the Kineos were phased out through an early retirement program. Texas Monthly Is Nominated for Two 2023 Media Awards by the James Beard Foundation. By the end of the war between the states, King Ranch had grown to 146,000 acres supporting thousands of head of cattle. The new group of leaders insists that the King Ranch legacy will not dieand perhaps it wont. In a year with sufficient rainfall, the cattle division added from $1 million to $3 million to the companys annual pre-tax profits. Alice Kleberg, daughter of Richard and Henrietta, and her husband, Robert, inherited more than 800,000 acres of the land, and they incorporated that acreage as the King Ranch in 1934. Family tree of Richard King Born 1825-07-10 in Orange County, New York, Ranch Owner Show generations: 3 4 5 8 all (Level: 99) Write a Comment, Richard King born 1825-07-10 in Orange County, New York - 1885 (Ranch Owner) Henrietta Maria King born 1856-04-17 in Brownsville, Cameron, Texas, USA - 1917 Denman, the former attorney for the ranch, remembers Dick telling Bob, If I can be of any use to you, I want to work. He was a deft roper and a fine horseman, one of the best all-around cowboys on the ranch. But what impressed many family members was that he had also been trained at Harvard Business School, focusing on agribusiness. [2] King retained the Santa Gertrudis ranch as part of his expanding King ranch while Kenedy purchased the Laureles Ranch, near Corpus Christi. video . Through the late seventies and into the eighties, the ranch was run by a committee of senior family members led by Jim Clement, an East Coasttrained businessman who had married the daughter of one of Bob Klebergs sisters. Its the kind of thing that regularly takes place in other companies, one King Ranch board member told me. Waggoner Ranch isnt as large as King Ranch, but it calls itself the largest ranch under one fence. King Ranch, meanwhile, is split across multiple parcels. 8 spot on the newest list that shows the biggest landowners in the United States. [4] It is mainly a cattle ranch, but also produced the Triple Crown winning racehorse Assault . Then Bob Kleberg did something that had not been done anywhere in the world in the previous two hundred years: He created a new breed of cattle. John Spong writes primarily about popular culture. Husband of Henrietta Maria Morse King Richard stowed away on a steamboat bound for Mobile, Alabama. Those experiences taught Jay the value of hard work and land stewardship, he said. During some legal proceedings in Corpus Christi in 1881, Captain King was so impressed with the opposing counsel that he sought him out after matters were settled. Also, during that time, future President Lyndon B. Johnson worked as his legislative assistant. As for Tio and Janell, they received the right in their severance package to keep leasing their home on the ranch for another seven years. ISBN 0894906739, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=18107. Will their understanding of their own heritage be blurred by their increasing demands for dividends? BibliographyCaptain King of Texas: The man who made the King Ranch, Tom Lea, 1957, Atlantic Monthly Press. (A single summer drought could cost the ranch up to $3 million.) He was just like his fathera servant to that land, adds Bruce Cheeseman, the archivist and historian at King Ranch from 1988 until 1997. And he began accumulating more landbuying nearby properties and trading until the ranch eventually totalled 825,000 acres, divided in four parts. In 1868, King and Kenedy dissolved their ranching partnership, taking 13 months to round up and divide the livestock. (832) 681-5700. John Spong writes primarily about popular culture. Today neither is with the ranch. The ranch has long been known as the Walled Kingdom, and indeed it looks like an invulnerable fortress, impervious to change. He didnt just go out there, watch for a while, and then get in a car and drive away, says one former King Ranch board member. Times were changing, and the board declared that the ranch no longer needed a domineering Bob Kleberglike leader. A board member went so far as to tell Johnson, One dictator in this family is enough. The brothers announced they were walking away from the ranch forever. He imported top equine stock and led efforts to develop a breed of cattle that could withstand the hot, harsh South Texas climate. She was like a character out of Victorian fiction, a thin and severe Presbyterian who for the next forty years would wear widows black and tour the ranch twice a year in a black, horse-drawn coach. John Armstrong, an esteemed family member who became president of the ranch after Jim Clement retired, said in a 1980 interview, If the next generation is content to live off their income, then weve lost it. Although a handful of new heirs used their dividends to buy smaller ranches for themselves, the vast majority never visited the King Ranch except for hunting trips in the winter and for the familys Summer Camp reunion and annual business meeting, where, according to one family member, everybody got to play cowboy for a week before returning to their real lives. In their group photograph taken at Summer Camp, they seemed to embody the best of the American aristocracy, with pointed noses and high cheekbones and graceful smiles. For the next 56 years he ran the ranch. Move Over, Snake Farm: Reptilandia Is the Hill Countrys Classy New Reptile Zoo, The Bronc-busting, Cow-punching, Death-defying Legend of Boots ONeal. [1] From 1842 to 1847, King would operate steamboats on the Apalachicola and Chattahoochee rivers, in Florida and Georgia.[1]. The new leaders of the King Ranch decided to keep the family together by turning their backs on Tio, one of the few remaining heirs who still believed there was more to the ranch than its wealth. Tio knew how to give his troops one hell of an inspirational speech about the King Ranch. These new people do not know us. A group of friends published a letter to the editor in the Kingsville newspaper that read, In its long and fabled history, King Ranch has had no greater servants or friends than Stephen (Tio) and Janell Kleberg. It doesnt matter where we are living, says Richard Sugden. He was keen on creating the infrastructure that would get his product to market in the most efficient way possible. A traditional Alpine barn, this four-bedroom property has been beautifully renovated to create a modern family home. According to those who worked with him, Tio followed the old family creed that a cattleman never left a herd until all the cattle work was finished. Tio was startled, for instance, when Hunt asked him for the odometer readings of the cowboys pickups to see if they were driving too much. Yet during the twice-yearly roundups, time seems to stand still. about king ranch heirs family tree please comment if we missed anything here, please let us know. It was also at this time that King Ranch acquired the prized Thoroughbred stallions that went on to produce, among others, ASSAULT, 1946 winner of the prestigious Triple Crown, and MIDDLEGROUND, the 1950 winner of the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes. From the 19th century, the gradual development of industry, followed by tourism and winter sports, will change the fate of the city. In 1852, King purchased a false title to the southern half of Padre Island. Those days are over. During this era, Robert J. Kleberg and Mrs. King continued to improve and diversify the assets of King Ranch with agricultural development, land sales, and town building projects. Who the hell thinks Scotts not doing a good job? Around the ranch, Wright was almost as beloved as Tio. 8 on a Land Report study listing the top U.S. landowners. In fact, like his father and grandfather before him, what Bob wanted was more land. King Ranch claims not only a large piece of Texas history but the cattle history as well. To get rid of Tio, Hunt knew he needed unanimous support from his eight-member board. There was a chance, a good chance if they got some rain, that the cattle division would have one of its most profitable years in a decade. Tio believed, says Leroy G. Denman, Jr., who was the ranch attorney for almost fifty years, that anybody who works for King Ranch ought to work like he does, which is from four a.m. until midnight, seven days a week, and that if you dont have that kind of dedication, you dont have any business here., In fact, considering how much work there was to be done that Friday, Tios 21-member staff was perplexed that he would call a meeting. He and Alice had five children, three daughters and two sons. All rights reserved. Nevertheless, Hunt still had one big problem: Tio Kleberg, the last irascible remnant of the old King Ranch. In 1860, King and Kenedy jointly purchased a large ranch, Santa Gertrudis, jointly managing livestock, as R. King and Company. Copyright 2023 King Ranch. By the early 1970's, King Ranch holdings totaled, worldwide, approximately 11.5 million acres. From left to right in the picture, the Kleberg children are: Alice, who is the only survivor of the five and perhaps the most fiercely independent of the bunch. Tio said he knew the ranch from top to bottom, and he could show anyone the places where there might be problems, such as a garbage dump or an underground storage tank. In 1863, the Union General Nathaniel Prentice Banks attempted to interrupt this trade with his forces capturing Brownsville, Texas and raiding and destroying the King Ranch, but King avoided the raid and resumed business in 1864, earning a considerable fortune over the course of the war. After World War II, the ranchs agricultural business was extended, in part to expand the national and global presence of the Santa Gertrudis breed. The grass around them was greentoo green, actually, for the King Ranch. Thank you for visiting king ranch heirs family tree page. At the annual family meeting at Summer Camp in mid-June, the board of directors decided to honor Tio and Janell. Some days youre amazed that man or beast can survive down here, Tio Kleberg told me one scorching June afternoon at his home, just a few hundred yards from the Big House. Some cowboys said he didnt have a firm handshake and he didnt look a person in the eye. Emily McCullar is a senior editor covering pop culture, news, and Texas history. But the drought lasted three years, costing the King Ranch several million dollars in unrecoverable feed costs and pasture leases. View 9 photos $1,224,468 2 Beds 2 Baths. Effective June 1, 1998, I have been asked by the King Ranch Board to resignJanell and I love each one of you and are truly grateful for the time we have spent with you and your families.. The company had a whopping $200 million either in the bank or invested in securities, and it had almost no debt. . 1882: King's attorney dies. The "seventh generation ranch" I don't think is actually referencing to how many generations are current. Richard Louis King Born 10 Jul 1824 in New York City, New York, United States Ancestors Son of Charles Henry King [uncertain] and [mother unknown] Shelton's grandparents, Alice King Kleberg and Robert Kleberg inherited 800,000 acres in 1925; their five children incorporated the King Ranch in 1934, and Sarah was one of those five children. Edna Ferber used Bob and his wife, Helen, the daughter of a Kansas congressman whom Bob had married after a seventeen-day courtship, as models for her novel Giant. Apocalypse Sow: Can Anything Stop the Feral Hog Invasion? King Ranch Institute for Ranch Management, Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute, game management and wildlife conservation practices. Waggoner Estate Ranch in Texas earlier this year, we can get a sense of King Ranchs value. After the attachment of Savoy to France in 1860, the City became a sub-prefecture. Scientific upbreeding programs have been hallmarks of King Ranch since its inception, and they have paid off in spades. In 1853, Captain Richard King purchased a creek-fed oasis in the Wild Horse Desert of South Texas, sparking generations of integrity, preservation, and innovation. Helen Groves, who was on the search committee, describes him as very un-pushy and respectful. But he is tenacious when it comes to evaluating the nuts and bolts of a business. There were other family members who believed that Tio had wasted King Ranch money on the introduction of the Santa Cruz; privately they said he was trying to draw attention to himself. We are an honest family and we ask a lot of pointed questions and we dont hesitate to express our thoughts. If there is a reason that the King Ranch has remained such a mythic Texas symbol, it is the family that created ita once larger-than-life clan that loved and fought and persevered with a relentless passion. The Kleberg family, descended from Richard King, held sway over the family's holdings from an austere whitewashed mansion on the ranch. He served in Congress, but on the ranch he deferred throughout his life to his younger brother, Bob. Meet the Kleberg family, which has owned the 825,000-acre ranch and agribusiness for generations now. Richard King and his wife, Henrietta, founded the King Ranch. Corpus Christi has a high school named for King. Hunt, who spent most of his time in Houston and was rarely seen around the ranch itself, had convinced the board of directors, two of whom were Tios cousins, that it was time for Tio to go. Tio had the homes of the oldest Kineoshomes they had lived in since birthmoved off the ranch, relocated in Kingsville, and given to them as a reward for their service.

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