b'o u rh i s t o r yCaptain Richard and Henrietta King lived in a Mexican jacal adobe hutduring that first year on the Santa Gertrudis Creekit was so small, Mrs. King once said that she had to hang her pots and pans outside. The Kings first ranch home was a five-room prairie-style house with a covered front porchthe one where Francisco Alvarado fell dead after the Union Army mistook him for Captain King, in 1863. The next home, the one built after the Civil War, was a three-story Victorian that stood for four decades, until it burned to the ground on January 4, 1912, in a suspected act of arson. Tom Lea famously wrote, [Henrietta] very calmly emerged from the burning house, wearing black and carrying two small bags, one with medicines and another with a few valuables. She is said to have blown a kiss to the house and then instructed her son-in-law Robert to start the process of building a new Main House.Then age 79, Mrs. King wanted to build a home for the legacy of the ranch andthatwouldaccommodatehergrowingfamilyofgrandchildrenand great-grandchildren, as well as visitors from across the country, and even the world. She considered two architectural directions, Victorian as was her last home, and a Spanish-style casa grande like those found on Mexican haciendas, which was the unique proposal of Carl and Carlton Adams, an uncle/nephew architectural firm in San Antonio. Their design included long, open corridors that would let the tropical breeze flow through the home, with an open, tropi-cal courtyard situated within the center interior of the mansion.Louis Tiffany & Co. of New York was hired to furnish and decorate the new Main House, which featured a lavish dining room that could accommodate 50 guests. Paintings were commissioned to Mrs. Kings favorite artists in San Antonio, one of which is an eight-by-six-foot oil painting of The Alamo. The new Santa Gertrudis Ranch estate took three years to complete, at a cost of $350,000 in 1912 ($11 million today), and made news across Texas. As gushed over by the San Antonio Express, [the house captures] the glory of the sunsets, the restless pulsing of the mighty gulf, the night winds bringing the lowing of Top: Robert J. Bob Kleberg,thousands of cattle, the melody of the bird-haunted prairies.III (Jr.), with his cousin,Decades of cattle breeding culminated when a red calf named MonkeyCaesar Kleberg, and Humblewas born on the Santa Gertrudis Ranch in 1920, which was 5/8 thsEnglish Oil president Harry C. Wiess,Shorthorn and 3/8 thsIndian Brahman. Bred to endure hot, humid conditions chatting on the King Ranchwhile producing over 70% beef product, Monkey would become the original in 1937. Above/Left: Cottagessire for Americas first beef cattle breed ever, and the worlds first beef breed under construction on thein over a century, as recognized by the United States Department of Agriculture ranch for use by Humble Oilin 1940the Santa Gertrudis. The breed holds protective characteristics like a workers who would drill overthick hide that better resists insects and parasites and provides insulation from 2,000 oil and gas wells, morethe cold, as well as sweat glands that cool the animal in the heat. The Santa than in Saudi Arabia at theGertrudis are also not particularly athletic, as they dont need to be, and they time. Above/Right: The Santawander lesswhile they gain weight at a rate of almost four pounds per day!Gertrudis Creek, where it allThe bottom line for the Santa Gertrudis breed for the ranchers to whom they started, over which a woodenwere sold was the same as it had been for King and Kleberg the prior 60 bridge was being built so thatyearsand that was the bottom line. After surviving the great and many perils massive oil field equipmentof pioneering untamed wild lands, and after narrowly missing execution by could be easily transportedthe United States Army, plus escaping armed attacks by bloodletting Coman-across the Santa Gertrudisches and bitter Mexican cattle banditsthe ultimate, determining factor of Division of the King Ranch.the success of Captain Kings ranch was their collective skill as businessmen. Left: A classic 1940s HumbleIn the eight decades since the Santa Gertrudis became a certified breed, its Oil filling stationfullinfluence laid the foundation for the modern American cattle industry, as well service of course! Humble Oilas those in South America and Australia, where it is the predominant breed.was purchased by StandardIn the Spanish tradition that carried on for generations by Mexican vaqueros, Oil and later became Exxon,including the ones who were at the founding of the Santa Gertrudis Ranch, now Exxon-Mobil, the worldsthe breeding of horses has always been of equal-or-greater importance than largest non-state, oil, gas andthat of cattle. In 1915, Bob Kleberg purchased Old Sorrel, an exceptional Quar-refining company. ter Horse stallion he found on a ranch near Alice, Texas (named after Alice90THE COASTAL BEND GUIDE TheCoastalBend.com'