Related Collections

Kenedy Family Collection
The Kenedy family contributed in the settling of South Texas and introducing large scale ranching to the coastal plains. Mifflin Kenedy, a Quaker from Pennsylvania, ferried supplies up the Rio Grande in a steamboat to the Texas troops during the Mexican-American and Civil Wars. Captain Mifflin Kenedy and Captain Richard King became friends and partners in acquiring huge tracts of land in South Texas where immense herds of wild horses roamed the plains. In 1875 Kenedy and King became chief supporters and financial backers of Colonel Uriah Lott in building a railroad from Corpus Christi to Laredo which became known as the Corpus Christi, San Diego & Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Railroad Company. During the last half of the 19th century Mifflin Kenedy created a huge fortune and left a legacy to his family and South Texas.

J.T. Canales Estate Collection
Judge J.T. Canales was a leading South Texas Mexican American political leader, lawyer, judge, legislator, landowner, and one of the founders of L.U.L.A.C., the League of Latin American Citizens. His estate collection includes correspondence, historical and religious articles, land records and abstracts, over 50 maps and building plans, and other materials. The Canales family descend from the original Spanish Land Grantee Don Jose Salvador DeLaGarza of the “El Espititu Santo” Land Grant, portions of which are still owned by the Canales family today.

Alonso S. Perales Papers
Materials accumulated about Alonso S. Perales, a founder of LULAC, a Nicaraguan Consul General, and a longtime civic leader in San Antonio. Perales was Consul general for twenty-five years and had served as counsel to the Nicaraguan delegation to the United Nations in 1945. He was a founder of the League of United Latin-American Citizens and was the author of two books, "In Defense of My Race" and "Are We Good neighbors?"

Ben Glusing Collection
The Benjamin A. Glusing Collection was donated in parts over thirty years. Ben donated favorite historical books, items of local interest and personal items from his office. The collection chronicles events of his life in Kingsville as a lawyer for the King Ranch and the town. He was involved at the state level as a legislator and the local level in community activities and his church's organizations.

Eduardo Hernandez Collection
Eduardo Hernandez is a Texas A&M University-Kingsville Alum with a B.S. in Criminology. He is currently working on his Masters in Criminology at TAMUK. Eduardo was accepted to the University of Cambridge to complete his second Maters, Philosophy in Criminological Research. Included is an oral history interview describing Eduardo’s life growing up, overcoming challenges and the acceptance process into the University of Cambridge. Also included are newspaper articles, personal photographs and his acceptance letter.

Robert Runyon Collection
The South Texas Archives houses over nine hundred volumes of books relating to botany, entomology, and succulents primarily from the Lower Rio Grande Valley, a gift of Robert Runyon's family. Runyon's Botanical Library was the largest and most complete private botanical library in Texas in 1970 when the collection was donated. The collection includes correspondence to and from Robert Runyon. Runyon went to the Rio Grande Valley area in 1909 and before 1920 began a decades-long campaign to save the Sabal Texana, a palm tree that was indigenous to the area, through preservation of an ancient grove and planting thousands of seeds in city parks. Runyon is widely known for cataloging the flora of the Rio Grande Valley. With only a rudimentary education and no formal training in botany other than what he learned through correspondence, reading and observation, Runyon, in 59 years as a resident of the Valley, discovered no less than 20 formerly unknown species of plants and one new genus in his area of South Texas. This correspondence relates to his studies in botany.

Ricardo and Debbie Backal Mexican Art and Rare Book Collection
Ricardo and Debbie Backal Mexican Art and Rare Book Collectionat the South Texas Archives is comprised of digital files of the loan of Crypto-Judaism monographs dating back to the 1500s, paintings of Spanish and Mexican culture, and Mexican calendars that were created from the paintings.

Texas Parks & Wildlife Department
This Small Scale Collection consists of reference materials from Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.