b'o u rh i s t o r yClockwise from Above: Site of the 1915 King Ranch Main House on Santa Gertrudis Creek; the Main House modern day; Bob Kleberg on the cover of TIME, 1947; Americas first beef cattle breed, the Santa Gertrudis, FDA-certified in 1940 and (Inset) Monkey, the 1920 calf that led to the new breed; 1946 Triple Crown winner, Assault, King Ranch bred and trained.fully funded to restart his ranching operations in Mexico. But having securedThe Texas Rangers reassembled after Reconstruction ended in 1875, and the letters of amnesty from President Andrew Johnson, King returned to the Santacattle raids stopped. King was the first rancher to fence-in his properties, the Gertrudis Ranch on July 14, 1865, to start the slow, painful process of rebuild- longest of which stretched over 500 miles and took ten days on horseback to ing his cattle business. With the Texas Rangers disbanded under Reconstruc- fully run. He invested in a railroad, packing houses and shipping infrastruc-tion, Mexican bandits eager to seize on post-war lawlessness were conductingture in Corpus Christi50 years before the deep water port was dredgedin cattle raids throughout South Texas. order to get his products to market fastest and with the smallest loss, com-Oneofthemostnotoriousbanditswasared-haired,green-eyed,formerpared to his competitors.aristocrat named Cheno Cortina, whose family had lost leagues of land nearBy 1875, 50-year-old Captain Richard King would at last escape the surviv-Brownsville during the Mexican-American War. Cortina would boast of Cap- al mode in which he had always lived. The land was at peace and business tain King, The gringo is raising cattle for me. Even though the Santa Gertru- was growing. Mrs. King was content, their younger children were cared for dis lost over 33,000 of 84,000 head of cattle during Reconstruction, beef de- by a Virginia governess, and the older children were headed to an exclusive mand was on the rise, as industrial expansion in the northern cities attractedboarding school in Kansas City. Those days of bliss would end when the Kings European immigrants and rural dwellers.youngest son, Robert Lee, whose plan was to run the ranch in the footsteps of In 1869, the Running W brand was registered nationally, and the identity of thehis father, caught pneumonia in 1883 and died, aged 19. ranch began to emerge. Over the 1870s, King sold over 100,000 head of cattle,With his heir lost and his older son already married and running his own making more than $1 million in profits ($33 million today). Santa Gertrudisfarming operation to the north, King lost his drive and told Henrietta that he was becoming one of the biggest livestock operations in the U.S., with over awas ready to sell the ranch. A sale did not happen, but his final years were not half-million acres, following Kings purchase of the San Juan de Carrecitos grant. unhappy ones. Rose Bud Whiskey played a bigger role in Kings lifeon one I have to make em think Im a man-eater. If I dont, theyll kill me.occasion, he spiked the lemonade on a train of dignitaries from Corpus Christi, The words of a life-long survivora man who was never content, not as anheaded to Laredo. The group ended up leading a thundering parade of singing 11-year-old boy in New York, nor as a teenage riverboat pilot in Florida, norand fighting through the streets of Laredo. as a 20-something merchant marine captainnot even while he was survivingHaving fallen ill in late February 1885, the Captain departed the ranch with the improbable task of making himself a millionaire in the face of an angryHenrietta and Alice for San Antonio, to be treated by his doctor. Richard King and vengeful United States Union Army determined to eliminate him. Evendied of stomach cancer on April 14th at the Menger Hotel, aged 60, 30 years to while enduring ongoing raids by Mexican cattle bandits during Reconstruction,the day after Legs Lewis. At the time of his death, the Santa Gertrudis was the King put his ingenuity to work improving his business and building his legacy.biggest ranch in the United States, and Richard King the richest man in Texas.84THE COASTAL BEND GUIDE TheCoastalBend.com'