Word: klebergs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Once, when Bob Kleberg was holding forth on what scientific breeding can accomplish, a friend remarked: "But nobody can breed better people." Bob considered the possibilities for a minute, then said: "Don't know. Maybe you could. Nobody's ever tried...
Later, Captain King was opposed in a lawsuit by a blond-bearded young lawyer, Robert Justus Kleberg "The First," son of a German émigré. Kleberg won the suit, and King was so impressed that he hired him as his own lawyer. When Captain King died in 1885 at 60, he left his widow, Henrietta, 500,000 acres of land and a $500,000 debt. She asked Bob the First to manage the ranch. Soon he married her youngest daughter Alice...
Robert the First. Kleberg the First put the gaunt ranch back on its feet. To combat drought, which periodically killed off thousands of cattle, in 1893 Kleberg drilled the first artesian well in those parts. He built the first of the concrete water troughs for cattle which are now sprinkled around the ranch. He brought in English Shorthorns and Herefords, the railroad (Missouri Pacific), and founded Kingsville. He built the Santa Gertrudis main house...
When the Widow King died in 1925, at 92, her complex will put the ranch in a trust for ten years. With Bob Kleberg the First ailing (he died seven years after the Widow King), the trustees chose his son and namesake to run the ranch...
...when the ranch trusteeship expired, the property was divided among the heirs.* The Klebergs got 431,000 acres and formed the King Ranch Corp. with Bob as president and manager, and Dick, then a Congressman, as chairman. The stock is held in equal fifths by Bob, Dick, their sisters Henrietta (wife of Celanese Corp. Vice President John A. Larkin), Mrs. Alice East, and the two sons of Sarah (who was killed in an auto accident). By purchase, Bob Kleberg has built the ranch's holdings up to 750,000 acres, leased 140,000 more to the corporation from...