The King Ranch lies between Corpus Christi and Brownsville and is currently the largest ranch in Texas. Historically, it was even larger when it was known as the Santa Gertrudis under a land grand from the King of Spain to José Domingo de la Garza. It was later conveyed to José Pérez Ray whose descendants conveyed it in turn to Richard King.
Electra was a well known sculptor in addition to being one of the heirs to the Waggoner Ranch holdings. She was born in Fort Worth on November 8, 1912 and died in Vernon on April 23, 2001 at the age of 88. Her father was E. Paul Waggoner, a familiar name to residents of North Texas, and her mother was Helen Buck Waggoner. She was the granddaughter of W. T. Waggoner, who with his father Dan was a founder of the ranch. She was the great granddaughter of Solomon Waggoner who first came to the plains.
Goodnight is a name that calls to mind cattle drives from North Texas to Wyoming or Montana and also the start of ranching in the Panhandle. Charles Foxwing Goodnight, Jr. was born in Illinois, not too far north of St. Louis, Missouri to farmers Charles and Charlotte Collier Goodnight in 1836. His father died five years after this and his mother married Hiram Henry Daugherty, a farmer who lived nearby. A few years later in 1845, the family headed for Texas, settling between what is now Milam County between College Station to the east and Austin to the west. Charles did not receive much formal schooling and began working as a cowboy to help the family get by. His first stepfather Daughterty also died not long after arriving in Texas. His mother then married a minister by the name of Adam Sheek in 1853. Goodnight and a step brother, John Wesley Sheek, began a ranching operation and around 1857 they relocated it further up the Brazos to what is now Palo Pinto County. Once they got settled, they brought the family with them.
During its ownership and control of Texas, Spain had attempted to colonize the areas along the Rio Grande to take advantage of its fresh water system. The King of Spain granted ownership of blocks of land to certain private individuals who had shown an interest in colonization and had resided in the area for a number of years. After Mexico declared its independence from Spain, most of the Spanish grants were upheld. Similarly, most were also recognized under the Texas Republic, following its establishment.
This famous ranch was founded by Charles Armand Schreiner, who was born in 1838 in Alsace-Lorraine, an area that lay between Germany and France. He came to the still young United States of America with his parents and family in 1852, settling in Bexar County. In an unexpected turn of events, both of his parents died shortly thereafter. His father Gustav passed as the result of a rattlesnake bite within a year from their arrival, followed by his mother Charlotte’s death four years later. His family was dispersed at that point, with his only sister getting married, one brother leaving for California to find gold and two other brothers remaining in San Antonio where they had found employment.
The name of this ranch is a familiar one to many from West Texas. I grew up within about 20 miles of the ranch and several of my parents’ friends had either worked or lived on the ranch at one time or another. The eastern boundaries of the very oldest part of the ranch began around Brownfield, Texas and extended to the Pecos River across the current state line, almost to Carlsbad, New Mexico. It originated when a Scotsman named Kennedy learned of the availability of some open land. R. F. Kennedy was to acquire it for the estate of the Earl of Aylesford. The Earl had come to Texas to try and purchase ranch land and had been temporarily been residing in the Big Spring, Texas area. As agent for the Earl, Kennedy consummated the purchase from some local buffalo hunters, one of whom went by the name of “Peg Leg” Whalen, in 1885 using his own funds. However, before Kennedy could be reimbursed for the cost of the land, the Earl unexpectedly died, leaving the ownership in the name of Kennedy.
This historic ranch was started in 1881 as a partnership of D. B. Gardner and Col. J. S. Godwin. The holding company Pitchfork Land and Cattle Company was formally organized in Missouri in 1883 and the founding shareholders were A. P. Bush Jr., Sam Lazarus, D. B. Gardner, W. H. Carroll, E. F. Williams and A. D. Brown. Gardner and Williams had been boyhood friends from Mississippi. Prior to the 1883 formation of the holding company, Williams had been a sales manager for Hamilton Brown Shoe Company, and Gardner had been a surveyor in Texas.
