Travelin' Man

The King Ranch: pure Texas power

The King Ranch maintains a small herd of Texas longhorns.
Photo by Stephan Lorenz
The King Ranch owns 800,000 acres of south Texas brush country with its wideopen skies.
Photo by Stephan Lorenz
Old saddles are on display at the museum in Kingsville. You can also buyexpensive riding gear at the King Ranch store.
Photo by Stephan Lorenz
Numerous old buildings on the ranch attest to its long history. The name acrossthis particular building refers to the original name of the ranch.
Photo by Stephan Lorenz
Tours leave from the visitor center on the Santa Gertudis Division, one of fourhuge parcels of land owned by the King Ranch.
Photo by Stephan Lorenz
Visitors can join daily tours that drive around the ranch for a few hours.
Photo by Stephan Lorenz
The majority of cattle on the King Ranch are Santa Gertrudis, a unique breedable to withstand the harsh subtropical climates of south Texas.
Photo by Stephan Lorenz
People visiting the famous King Ranch hail from all over the United States andthe world.
Photo by Stephan Lorenz
The whitewashed walls of the King Ranch mansion stand in stark contrast to therough mesquite country stretching for miles and miles around it.
Photo by Stephan Lorenz

I have lived in Texas for more than a decade now, and I have traveled south along US-77 a dozen times. But I had never stopped at the King Ranch before.

Apparently everybody else did, though. I picked out bits of Russian, Dutch, and German from the crowd filing onto the tour bus. Another family had traveled from Louisiana, and a few folks from states beyond. Even celebrities and royalty had caught on, with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Prince Albert visiting recently.

My fiancé Claudia and I took a front row seat on the crowded bus, eagerly breathing in the AC as temperatures soared to 105 degrees in the parking lot.

Our guide grew up on the ranch, her family’s roots reaching deep into the 19th century — when her great-grandfather worked there as a cowboy. After a short stint in the army, she was back home. She invited questions as the bus rolled down narrow pavement toward a gated entrance.

Ranch, with a side of longhorns

I scanned the savanna-like pastures rolling toward distant lines of trees, half expecting to see grazing zebras and stalking lions. Then I reminded myself that this was an actual working ranch.

A visit to the King Ranch should be taken with a grain of salt. But its almost blind frontier spirit is still alive — from the overpriced gift shop all the way to the dust collecting on the museum’s stuffed alligator.

In fact, the King Ranch remains one of the largest working ranches in the world. During its peak, it encompassed 1.2 million acres of south Texas brush country. Today, it consists of four large divisions — mainly in Kennedy and Kleberg Counties — still encompassing more than 800,000 acres. Captain Richard King went from being an orphan to a stint as a steamboat captain to becoming one of the richest men in the United States, after founding the ranch in 1853.

At the first stop, we could see two Texas longhorns sitting under a tree, moving as much as a rock. During the 1870s, these hardy bovines once roamed the King Ranch as their hallmark beef stock, but today, they're just kept for tradition's sake. Apparently Henrietta King, the ranch’s matriarch, had a fondness for longhorns and an abhorrence of rattlesnakes. In addition to demanding cultured behavior and religious reverence in her house, she placed a bounty on rattlesnakes.

To shoot or to view — that is the question

The main villa stands in stark contrast to the rough surroundings. Whitewashed walls and hallways rise among old oaks to a gleaming tower of Mediterranean architecture. Peacocks patrol the grounds — apparently to keep guests safe from snakes. The manicured lawns come to an abrupt end along the edge of mesquite thickets, stretching for miles all the way to the coast.

Driving past endless pastures, we saw groups of cherry-red Santa Gertrudis cattle, a pure breed developed on the King Ranch in the early 20th century. The crowd on the bus nodded in agreement as we slowly passed one of the massive bulls, uniquely adapted to the harsh tropical climates.

Hunters can visit other sections of the ranch for a shot at quail, deer, javalinas, and even introduced game animals. Our guide eagerly scanned the brush for more wildlife, but except for some skittish deer, that was it.

If you are like me and shooting at wildlife is not your idea of fun, the ranch also offers wildlife viewing tours.

The tour ended with glimpses of a cowboy field camp, the rodeo arena and the housing complex where workers live.

History with a grain of salt

The small museum back in Kingsville houses various antique cars owned by the Kings, beautiful black-and-white photographs of ranch life, and an assortment of guns, saddles, flags and a few taxidermies.

Tourism is only a small branch of the King Ranch, which today derives its main income from hunting, beef, oil and gas.

If you judge strictly be the tour, The King Ranch seems to be stuck in time. Full of traditions, debatable wildlife practices and slightly inaccurate history (for example, snakes are still killed, and no one mentions the original owners of the lands), it sticks to its roots unlike any other place in Texas.

A visit to the King Ranch should be taken with a grain of salt. But its almost blind frontier spirit is still alive — from the overpriced gift shop all the way to the dust collecting on the museum’s stuffed alligator.

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Red Light

San Antonio leads Texas on ending horse-drawn carriage rides by 2030

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Horses will no longer pull carriages on the streets of downtown San Antonio.

San Antonio has pulled off something that the rest of Texas has yet to do, but it didn't come without some contentious conversations. City Council has unanimously voted (with one abstention) to phase out the use of horse-drawn carriages over the next five years. That means by January 1, 2030, there will be none on the streets at all; instead, there will be electric carriages.

These plans have been in the making since 2022 — if not always at the same level of intensity — when District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and District 3 Councilmember Phyllis Viagran wrote up some concerns about the horses' wellbeing. A special session at the end of October 2024 hinted to San Antonians that the end for this practice was neigh — sorry, nigh — and the final vote was made on December 12. In addition to accepting the plan, it extended its timeframe by two years.

The initial proposal included worries about the horses' exposure to traffic and pollution, as well how their presence might exacerbate those issues for the environment at large by slowing traffic. It also raised concerns about the effects of standing or walking on hard surfaces for too long, or spending time in extreme weather.

At the December 12 meeting, San Antonians gave impassioned speeches about animal welfare — both to call attention to the need for better conditions and to defend the reputations and jobs of current horse drivers — but it wasn't the first time the council heard from the public about the issue.

In a prior city survey, 50,476 respondents weighed in. Of those respondents, 51.98 percent said they liked the idea to "Transition horse-drawn carriages to electric carriages and pedicabs and ban horse drawn carriages completely." There were alternative solutions listed, but respondents were less drawn to them.

A cultural divide emerged in the data and continued in the December meeting: some people avoided the carriages because they worried about the treatment of the horses, while others enjoyed them because of their historical echoes and living legacy. Many speakers in favor of the plan used this to form their argument, raising questions about history versus progress.

More tangible objections to the plan hinged on the businesses — specifically five companies — and jobs that would be lost, which was the main factor behind extending the adjustment period.

Discussions about the particulars of the electric vehicles are still to come, as confirmed in the discussion near the end of the meeting. Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez addressed concerns about what would happen to the horses, mentioning the Brady Hunter Foundation as a future partner in finding them rescue homes.

Some council members also brought up rhetorical questions about animal exploitation by groups like Sea World, the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, military and police forces, and even various groups in the Fiesta parade, although these did not come with a formal motion to pick the issues up.

This decision could have a ripple effect on other Texas cities. Dallas has recently considered a similar ban, but it appears to have stalled; Austin's attempts at a ban have been unsuccessful, but according to the Austin-American Statesman, only one operator is permitted to bring horses downtown. She declines to do so because the long hours are unfair to her and the horses. Houston does have horse-drawn carriages, and there seems to be little conversation about banning them.

Cities like Chicago and Salt Lake City have led the charge in the United States with some of the most prominent successful bans. Other cities around the world with bans include Brussels and Guadalajara, which both switched to electric models. Bans that have been around for years, like Guadalajara's and Prague's, still aren't out of the woods — people are still pushing back on the decision, so it sounds like San Antonio still has much work cut out for it.

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