KINGSVILLE

city, seat (1913) of Kleberg county, southern Texas, U.S. It lies along the coastal plain, 32 miles (51 km) southwest of Corpus Christi. It was laid out on the King Ranch (the land deeded by Henrietta King) in 1903 to be the headquarters of the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico Railroad (later the Missouri Pacific). As seat of the King Ranch, the city became a ranching capital. From an original 15,500 acres (6,300 hectares) purchased in 1853 for less than two cents per acre, Richard King, an early steamboat captain, and his heirs built a cattle empire of nearly 1,000,000 acres (400,000 hectares) spread over Kleberg, Nueces, Kenedy, and Willacy counties. The ranch has pioneered in livestock and agricultural research. Its Santa Gertrudis breed, a Brahman-Shorthorn cross, was the first true breed of beef cattle to be developed in the Western Hemisphere. Kingsville also is a petroleum centre with a large natural-gas works and a petrochemical plant. It is also home to a U.S. naval air station and Texas A&M UniversityKingsville (1925). Inc. 1911. Pop. (1990) 25,276; (1998 est.) 25,211.