Kingsville is located in the northern part of the Wild Horse Desert region of South Texas. The storied history of this Texas town is part of Western lore. The region was originally a patchwork of large Spanish land-grant ranches, and the ranchers needed a way to bring their cattle to market. The legal contract made between King Ranch manager Robert Kleberg and railroad builder Benjamin Yoakum secured the general office, shops, and roundhouse of the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway with a handshake. Laborers, skilled workers, merchants, and farmers soon flocked to this barren area to build Kingsville and make a home for their families. Kingsville became a railroading community, college town, center of the oil industry, and home to the Naval Air Station at Kingsville. Modern Kingsville is an intellectual center for ranch management, a home to state-of-the-art training for naval aviators, and an ecotourism center for birding and wildlife enthusiasts. Pat Allison volunteers at the 1904 Kingsville Train Depot Museum. In an effort to better share the story of Kingsville, she embarked on a lengthy historical study of the region. Most of the images in this book are from the South Texas Archives in the Jernigan Library at Texas A&M University--Kingsville. Other images are from the King Ranch Archives and families in the community.