King Ranch is as much part of the legends of Texas as the Yellow Rose, the Alamo, the Galveston Hurricane, and Spindletop. As John Steinbeck declared "Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession... a mystique closely approximating a religion." Texas' image worldwide is cattle and cowboy and King Ranch is the name everyone knows. It is the largest working ranch in the US. We see this when we're driving and get behind a big King Ranch pickup with the flying W: Ford licensed the name for their largest truck. Today, the ranch is much bigger and international in scope.
Much of the book is not so much about the ranch as about Richard King. Beginning as a riverboat captain on the unpredictable Rio Grande, he appears as a colorful, feisty Irishman who helps tame wild, hot, inhospitable South Texas. He weathers great setbacks, fights the Mexicans stealing his cattle, rebuilds his torched home (33,000 sq. ft. now), sells his agricultural products by running the Yankee blockades during the Civil War, and builds a great cattle ranch using Texas Longhorns.
Don Graham does an excellent job describing early South Texas conditions: 65,000 Mexican citizens lived along both sides of the Rio Grande at the time of the Texas Revolution! They were part of Mexico and wanted to remain part of Mexico. It was split literally in two when Texas drew the Rio Grande as its southern border rather than the Neches. The level of economic activity and the length of settlement in the valley give it a unique identity.
South Texas' significant to the South during the American Civil war is another important story. Many desperate Southern farm families and their slaves made the long trek south with their cotton. Captain King manages to run cotton and still be forgiven after the war. What would a history book about Texas be without the appearance of the Texas Rangers! Whose side was whose was not always clear, but Capt. King did always end up on the right one. His ingenuity shines when he recruit an entire town from south Texas - the Kinenos - to move up to the ranch.
In the 1880s cattlemen made the trek north with the cattle and the stuff of legends become cattle drives, Longhorn breeding, and barbed wire. When King dies in 1884 his heirs through daughter Alice take over the ranch. Alice's husband Robert Kleburg and son Robert Kleburg Jr. carry the ranch to new highs. Oil finds in 1939 fund new projects in addition to cattle breeding. King Ranch even has a Thoroughbred Horse Assault that wins the 1943 Triple Crown.
Towards the end the book gets tangled in the "partnership" lawsuit. The book was released when the issue was still open and much (too much) detail is included. A Mr. Chapman made an early verbal partnership contract with Richard King on a large piece of land. Chapman moves away, appears to forget about the property, then dies. His heirs, 140 years later, sue for a hunk of the now successful ranch. After pages of lawyers, mad people, and an initial ruling in favor of the Chapmans, the Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of the King Ranch. After the book went to press, the Texas Supreme Court and then United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case and the matter mercifully ends in 2004.
King Ranch is now run professionally for the benefit of the heirs and stockholders. One's heart has to twang with Uncle Tio is asked to step down in 1998. Just a few pages are given to describing ventures into hunting leases (800 deer and $3M annually), St. Augustine grass, and new properties in Florida and internationally.
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