Day 47: We Leave the Rio Grande Valley and Stop at The King Ranch and Museum

On Monday February 17 we said goodbye to San Benito and headed north up Route 77 to Kingsville, Texas.  We stopped at the King Ranch Headquarters for a 1-1/2 hour bus tour to see part of the 825,000 acre ranch which is larger than the state of Rhode Island.

This is the "Flying W" brand for the King Ranch. 

Here are a few of the Long Horn Cattle raised on the dry pastures.

The ranch has its own rodeo barn to have events for its employees.

This sign caught our attention.  Richard King paid $.02 cents per acre for the first 15,500 acres he bought.  His wife later started paying  $.03 cents apiece for each snake rattle brought to her as she hated rattlesnakes.  240,000 we brought in over the years.

Richard King developed the Santa Gertudis breed of cattle.  Here are some of the registered stock.

This is a push gate that can be opened by bumping it with a pickup without having to get out of the cab.

These antlers were in the front yard of one of the ranch employees.

This was an original stone barn from the start of the ranch in 1853.  It was renamed later to the King Ranch.  Ford Motor has a fancy pickup edition named for the ranch.

 

After the ranch tour we drove into Kingsville to see the King Ranch Museum but no pictures were allowed there.