Kleberg County Texas Genealogy and History - presented by Genealogy Trails


Welcome to Kleberg County, Texas

Texas Genealogy Trails

$Volunteers Dedicated to Free Genealogy$

This Kleberg County Website

is available for adoption.

Our goal is to help you track your ancestors through time by transcribing genealogical and historical data and placing it online for the free use of all researchers.

If you have a love for history, a desire to help others, and basic web-authoring skills, consider joining us! If hosting isn't for you, we can use your help in other ways. Get the details on our Volunteer Page.
[A desire to transcribe data and knowledge of how to make a basic webpage is required.]

We regret that we are unable to perform personal research for folks.
All data we come across will be added to this site. We thank you for visiting and hope you'll come back again to view the updates we make to this site.
* * * NEW DATA ADDED CONSTANTLY * * * . . . CHECK BACK OFTEN . . .

Kleberg County Texas

Kleberg and nearby counties were the scene of a little known drama in North American history. In 1568, English privateer John Hawkins suffered grave damage to his fleet in a raid on a Spanish coastal town in Central America. One of his ships sank, and the others were so badly damaged that there was not room aboard for the entire crew to make the trip back to England. The ever-resourceful Hawkins put 114 sailors ashore just south of the mouth of the Rio Grande. Most of the castaways were lost to history, but David Ingram, Richard Brown and Richard Twide walked first to Canada and then to the Atlantic coast, where they were picked up in October 1569 by a French ship and returned to England.

Kleberg County was created from Nueces County in 1913 and organized in that same year. It was named for Robert Justice Kleberg, an 1880 graduate of the University of Virginia, lawyer, friend of Capt. Richard King, and founder of the 825,000 acre King Ranch. After King's death in 1885, his widow, Henrietta King, asked Robert Kleberg to help run the ranch of her. Kleberg married Alice Gertrudis King, youngest daughter of Henrietta and Richard King. Their son, Robert Justice Kleberg Jr., managed the ranch after his father's death in 1933 until his own death in 1974.

The town of Kingsville was really the creation of Henrietta King. anticipating a railroad to Brownsville, just after the turn of the century, she designated a large piece of the ranch near the headquarters as incentive for rail construction. In 1903, when the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad was built along that line, the town of Kingsville was surveyed and laid out by the King Ranch surveyor. Lots were sold, and eventually the town became a cattle-shipping point, railroad repair facility and university town.

Photo by Larry D. Moore CC BY-SA 3.0.

KLEBERG COUNTY COURTHOUSE

CITIES, TOWNS, AND POPULATED PLACES

* Kingsville * Riviera * Loyola Beach * Ricardo * Vattmann * Padre Island National Seashore (part) *

Check your attics!
Dust off your family scrapbooks!
We're looking for DATA for this site!!!

If you are interested in adding your families' information to this website, Email Us.
We'll be happy to help your families' obituaries, news items and other historical data find a home here at Texas Genealogy Trails, where it will remain free for all to view.

Online Data
Biographies	Birth Records
Cemeteries	Census Records
Church Records	County Records
Death Records	Family Records
History Topics	Marriage Records
Military Records	Miscellaneous Records
Newspaper Gleanings	Obituaries and Death Notices
School Records	Wills and Probate Records
Website Updates: Mar 2025: Death News: CROSS, HOLLINGSWORTH; Marriage News: HARRINGTON, SMITH, ROEMER, HINTON, LARKIN, KLEBERG, DOGHERTY, HORAN, DEES, MATTISON Nov 2024: Death News: HOGUE; Calamity News: 1914 Frisco Wreck; Visiting News: GENTRY, SALTER, DARWIN, COLSTON, GILLIS, FLATO, COLSTON, GILLIS, STOREY, ROGERS, TONER, WELHAUSEN, VILLARET, JERSIG Jul 2024: Birth News: HENRY, CREAGER, CRENSHAW, FEARNOW, BROSSETTE; Marriage News: JOHNSON, WILHELM; School News: HARPER, HUFFMAN, WORD, YERRICK, YEARY, KIDD, COLLINS, HERRING, JOHNSON, LLOYD, HALLMARK, MILLIKEN, CORNELIUS, GRAY, FERGUSON, WHITE, HAYES, RHEW, FRITTS, FAIR; History: Cattle Brands: BRISTER, MOLINE, DUKE, NEUBAUER, GONZALES, OLSON, GUERRA, SEARS, King Ranch, SHEPPARD, KING, WELDER, McGRIFFIN, WRIGHT Mar 2024: Marriage News: MORRIS, RICHMOND, SANDERS, ROBINSON, HILL, SMITH, JOHNSON, FLATO Nov 2023: Marriage News: WEIR, GIBSON; Birth News: MATTHEWS; Death News: FLATO, RAYMOND, MOORE Jul 2023: Marriage News: REED, AKERS, BROWN, HOFFMAN, RIOS, GONZALES; Birth News: DUKE; Death News: RIOS Mar 2023: Ads: Post Office Barber Shop, PRICE, ROBERTS, MATHEWS, ALLISON, HUNTER, KOWALSKI, SMITH, WILSON, GORDON, NIXON, Home Cafe, LEONARD

SEARCH OUR SITES

Submit an Obituary to Us
for any of our county sites.

If you would like to be kept informed of our state and county website updates, subscribe to any or all of our mailing lists

Texas is covered under our "Southwestern States" mailing list.

The Southwestern States List covers :
Texas -- New Mexico -- Oklahoma -- Nevada -- Arizona

Surrounding Counties

Nueces County (north)

Gulf of Mexico (east)

Kenedy County (south)

Brooks County (southwest)

Jim Wells County (west)

Click here to select another county

VISIT OUR GULF COAST REGION PAGE

OR VISIT OUR TEXAS STATE PAGE

OR VISIT OUR NATIONAL SITE