Related Collections

Billy Newton Photograph Collection
532 photographs taken during Billy Newton's journalist career in the Kingsville, TX / Bishop, TX area.

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.

Agrasanchez Film Collection
Materials originally held by the Agrasanchez Film Archive in Harlingen, Texas. 360 movie posters, 6.727 movie stills, and 253 lobby and window cards pertaining to Mexican cinema from the 1936's through the 1980's, as well as 49 Mexican movies in VHS format, and 100 area theater records, including Kingsville, Alice, and Falfurrias, Texas.

Benjamin F. Wilson Jr. Collection
Col. Benjamin F. Wilson Jr. was born July 4, 1913, he was the third child of Judge Benjamin F. Wilson Sr. and Alice Warnock Wilson. He attended the University of Texas and graduated from Texas A&I University (then College) in 1940 with a MBA degree. Ben Jr. married Florence Collins in Kingsville in 1941. He was mobilized when the Texas National Guard, 36th Division was called into Federal service. He served throughout World War II in North Africa, Italy, and the European operations. Awarded the Bronze Star in 1945, Ben Jr. returned home to Kingsville. He bought and operated Wilson's True Value Hardware. Ben and Florence had two sons; Ben F. Wilson III in 1947 and Allen Collins Wilson in 1950.

Drewey Wayne Gunn Collection
Professor Emeritus Drewey Wayne Gunn served as an active Texas A&M University-Kingsville faculty member from 1968 to the present (except for a sojourn in Denmark as a Fulbright teacher and in France as an ESL teacher from 1972 to 1977). He is a literary historian, editor, translator and author. Dr. Gunn donated a collection of Tennessee Williams literature. It includes articles, maps, and plays featuring literature he loves and a field he enhanced with his publications and work. Dr. Gunn, in another donation added 367 volumes of LBGT literature.

Emily Rutland Art Collection
The Emily Rutland Art Collection depicts rural scenes from farm life in the early and middle 20th century. Animals and landscapes of South Texas are illustrated in a variety of media including charcoal, watercolor, pen and ink, and lithographs.

Frank & June Dotterweich Collection
Professional papers, files, and publications from the career of Dr. Frank Dotterweich, who established the Natural Gas Engineering Program at the Texas College of Arts & Industries in 1936. As part of the first of-a-kind program, Dr. Dotterweich published many articles that even today continue to offer foundation research. Included in this collection are copies of most of his publications, some of which are the only copies available, as well as scrapbooks, news clippings, and papers left by his wife, June Dotterweich, who was active in local civic organizations.

Floyd Elton & Jewell Griffith Rees Collection
The Floyd Elton & Jewell Griffith Rees Collection consists of over 650 books and journals, approximately 2 cubic feet of manuscript material, and over 1000 railroad related photographs. The collection of books focuses on the Civil War and the Confederacy, Texas and Mexican History, and Railroad History. The photographs document every type of railroad activity (especially accidents), objects (like rolling stock and locomotives) and locals (depots and train yards) related to railroads in Texas, and especially in South Texas from the late 1800’s through the 1970's. The manuscript materials deal mostly with railroad activities and history.

Garcia-Smith Family Collection
The Donor, Dr. Julia Smith is a retired professor of Language and Literature at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. Julia Garcia and George Smith were married in 1929 and joined two long time Texas families. Mr. Smith was the descendant of Canary Islanders.

J. K. Northway Papers
Dr. J.(James) K.(Kellogg) Northway was a long time veterinarian with the King Ranch at the beginning of the 20th century. Included in the collection he left for the Archives are correspondence, literary productions, photographs, and printed and oversized materials of his early days as a King Ranch veterinarian and his activities.

Janet Cooper Collection
Files and legal papers from the court cases of Janet Cooper vs. Kingsville Independent School District. Janet Cooper sued for nonrenewal of her contract due to a teaching method she employed called the Sunshine Project. The Sunshine Project involved role playing and simulation to dramatize conversion of a radically segregated society during Reconstruction to one less segregated. Eight years of litigation resulted and the case went to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Cooper won the case, was reinstated, and received back pay, retirement pay, and lawyer fees.

Jimmy Dodd Photograph Collection
This collection includes photographs and negatives; over 500 images, taken by pioneer Kingsville, Texas Citizen, James (Jimmie) Andrew Dodd. The photographs are mostly of Kleberg County and the surrounding areas throughout the first half of the 20th century.

Presbyterian Pan American School Records
The Presbyterian Pan American School, began in the first half of the 20th century, was created to offer an education to young boys from Mexico. Rev. James W. Skinner was the first president. The school celebrated its centennial in 2011-2012. Materials encompass the history of the school including yearbooks, photographs, student publications, and correspondence.

Sam A. Millar Photograph Collection
The collection is a one album containing photographs of quarter horses and racehorses on the King Ranch, mostly on the Norias Division, around 1944. Sam Millar was a friend of Dr. J. K. Northway's, King Ranch's veterinarian.

Sue and Ernest Ford Collection
Julia Sue Runnels Ford was a writer for the "Kingsville Record and Bishop News" in 1922 when she married Ernest A. Ford Sr in Riviera at her mother's home. The couple farmed, ranched, and were of service to their community in many ventures. The collection consists of Sue's photographs, negatives, two weekly columns published by the paper, "Farm Notes" and "These are Your Neighbors," and correspondence. The photographs and negatives are images of South Texas, during the middle of the twentieth century. Country and ranch life are depicted along with images of the people and culture of a small, growing community. The towns of Kingsville, Ricardo, and Corpus Christi are highlighted, along with the livestock and crops of the farms. King’s Ranch and the famous Santa Gertrudis breed of cattle are included.

South Texas Archives All-American Javelina Collection
The collection of 143 photographs of All-American Javelina athletes from Texas A&I University and Texas A&M University-Kingsville, spanning years 1925-2010 was created for a John C. Conner Museum exhibit, "Javelina Pride: Eight Decades of Athletic Tradition," in the fall of 2011. Included are athletes from football, baseball, basketball, tennis, track & field, and golf.

University Archives El Rancho Annual Yearbook Collection
Dismantled copies of annuals that where digitized.

University Archives Collection
The collection includes records from TAMUK since its beginning as South Texas State Normal School.

Arnold-Hightower Family Collection
The Arnold-Hightower Family Collection includes football photographs of games played at Texas College of Arts and Industries (now Texas A&M University-Kingsville) during 1938 – 1939. Donald Hightower and Warren Arnold are featured in the photographs. In 1941 Arnold received offers to play pro football for the Detroit Lions, Philadelphia Eagles, and the Chicago Bears. Two other Hightower students during those years were L. V. “Dugan” Hightower and Mildred Hightower. Wallace Arnold married Mildred Hightower and joined the Navy after America’s declaration of war. This collection contains information highlighting the college days and World War II of the Arnold and Hightower families.

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.

Carrie Northway Coleman Collection
Mrs. Carrie N. Coleman was a long time public school teacher and active in Kingsville community affairs. The sister of a prominent King Ranch veterinarian she left a collection of correspondence, financial records, legal documents, photographic and printed materials, sound recordings and many local and school newspapers.

Flato Family Collection
The Flato family was one of the first families to reside in the newly created town of Kingsville, Texas. Charles H. Flato Jr. moved with his wife Eleanor Louise von Roeder Flato to Kingsville from Shiner, Texas in 1904. During the early years of Kingsville Charles H. Flato Jr. was instrumental starting the education system, establishing businesses, acquiring the "Normal School" (now Texas A&M University - Kingsville), creating many community organizations and promoting Kingsville and Kleberg County. His family carried on his legacy after his early demise.

Genoveva Barrera Leach Collection
This collection includes twenty-six negatives and a few photographs of early 1900 scenes in Premont, Texas. Correspondence concerning the family, schools, and conditions in Premont when wild burros roamed the streets is included along with financial records of Cibolo Ranch where Genoveva Barrera Leach was born and grew up. Leach graduated from Texas College of Arts and Sciences. She taught at Cibolo Ranch, La Copita, and Premont schools. A great reader and local historian she preserved papers and items she donated to South Texas Archives.

Charles E. Pulliam Sound Recordings Collection
The Charles E. Pulliam Sound Records Collections consists of 36 78 RPM recordings of popular music during the 1930s through the 1940s. Two of the titles of the recordings include Voice of the Mountain Land by J. R. Thomas and The Clang of the Forge by Paul Rodney.

Kingsville Historic Resources Survey Report
The Kingsville Historic Resources Survey Report was a grant funded project to document the extant cultural resources in the local Kingsville Historic District and to develop recommendations for the preservation of the historic resources of the area through potential creation of neighborhood districts or nomination for placement of individual properties on the National Register of Historic Places, the State register, or the local register. In the fall of 2011, Robert Trescott, Downtown Manager for the City of Kingsville, proposed that Texas A & M University Kingsville (TAMUK) partner with the City in the completion of the Inventory and Survey of the local Kingsville Historic District. In July 2012, the City hired Cynthia Martin, Architectural Historian, as a consultant to work on the project.

Luis Munoz’s Bilingual Theater Collection
With the hiring in 1972 of Texas A&I University at Kingsville's first bilingual teacher in theater, Joseph Rosenberg (formerly with Goddard College in Vermont), the theater department got its first taste of bilingual dramatic art. Rosenberg, whose family was bicultural and bilingual, decided he wanted to combine his Mexican and American cultures and initiated the Bilingual Theater Program. La Fiaca was the first production that opened in Kingsville in 1973 and was acted in both Spanish and English. Later that summer, La Fiaca, was toured in Mexico.Other productions followed and the bicultural theater exchange program of Texas A&I University-Kingsville was begun and flourished through the year 1977 under the leadership of Dr. Rosenberg.

Luis Fuentes Family Collection
Luis Fuentes Sr. was a respected business owner and pioneer of the Kingsville community.He was born in Mexico, his family immigrated to the United States when he was a child. He was a hard working citizen who created his own opportunities and owned several respected clothing businesses in South Texas in the first half of the 20th century.

Manuel Castro Baseball Collection
Manuel Castro was a King Ranch semi-pro baseball player and umpire. The team called the King Ranch Cowboys began as a semi-pro team of ranch employees in the 1940s. They were better than most teams in South Texas and became known in the region. Castro collected baseball publications in the 1960s and 1970s which his niece, Cynthia S. Castro donated to the John E. Conner Museum in November 1999. The museum transferred the documents to the South Texas Archives in 2000.

Mary Margaret Gussett Ewert Collection
The collection tells the story of Mary Margaret Gussett Ewert's life in South Texas. Her family was involved in building the communities of Live Oak and Corpus Christi and her letters describe their activities. Mary Margaret worked as the secretary for the President of Texas A&I University. She later married Dr. William Arthur Ewert and raised a family. She was active in garden and women's clubs, her church and the Red Cross. She met and developed a good friendship with Lyndon Baines Johnson and his family.

Mike V. Ybarra Papers
Personal and public documents of Melquiades (Mike) V. Ybarra who served as a Kingsville City Commissioner, Kleberg County Commissioner, and a Marine Corps veteran of World War II. Ybarra was a longtime civic and political leader in Kingsville who advocated for the rights of Hispanics and was most active as the president of LULAC. Materials from Mike Ybarra include correspondence, service awards, certificate awards, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, Department of the Navy, death announcement, notes of speeches, election materials, LULAC, campaign letters, photographs, and election posters.

Playhouse of Design Art Society Records
Correspondence, minutes, year books, printed annuals, calendars, scrapbooks and financial records for shows, calendars and yearbooks of the activities of the "Playhouse of Design" an art club originally begun by Mrs. Jake Trussell of Ricardo in January of 1960. Personal letters and speeches by past presidents and large scrapbooks for each year highlighthighlight the society’s activities.

Spohn Kleberg Memorial Hospital Auxiliary Records
The Kleberg Memorial Hospital Auxiliary, formerly known as Kleberg County Hospital Auxiliary, came into being on February 14, 1962, with the first election of officers and the ratification of its by-laws by members of the Community Service Department of the Woman's Club of Kingsville, which was the founding organization. The fledgling Auxiliary became independent with that meeting. When the new hospital was dedicated in 1985, the group changed names once again to the Spohn Kleberg Memorial Hospital Auxiliary. This collection consists of documents and photographs that this organization created during their volunteer services over 30 years.

Stevens G. Herbst Collection
Stevens G. Herbst, an alumni of Texas A&I University now Texas A&M University donated a collection of documents and photographs that details the name change of the university in the 1990s, the funding and creation of the Frank H. Dotterweich statue by Armando Hinojosa and the change of the name of the College of Engineering to the Frank Dotterweich College of Engineering at Texas A&M University-Kingsville.

Senator Carlos F. Truan Papers
Carlos F. Truan played an instrumental role in shaping the destiny of the Lone Star State, serving the citizens of South Texas with dedication and vision over the course of an impressive, and indeed unprecedented, career as a member of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Senator Truan came from a humble, single parent home and worked hard to earn his college degree from a small South Texas college. He entered the work world in the early 1960s, before the Civil Rights movement had even hinted at including Mexican Americans in the quest for equality and justice. Through the legislation he authored and/or sponsored he worked to make government more responsive to the people it served.

Josiah Cox Russell
Collection of publications by Dr. Josiah Cox Russell, a professor of history at Texas A&I University in the 1970s. In 1971 Dr. Russell had been awarded the Prestigious Piper Professor Award from the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation. His work was primarily on medieval demography.

Thien Wah Papers
Dr. Thein Wah, a Professor of Engineering from 1971 to 1984 at Texas A&M University-Kingsville donated his profession papers to South Texas Archives. He authored over fifty original papers and two books in the field of civil engineering. This collection consists of 34 of his published papers.

C.A. Davis, Jr. Papers
C.A. Davis, Jr attended Texas A&I College from 1939 - 1943. During his tenure as a student he wrote articles for South Texas paper as an Engineering Student from 1940-1942.

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.

Tau Beta Pi Records
Materials pertaining to the operation of Tau Beta Pi, engineering honors society, on campus.

Maggie Blanco Salinas Papers
This collection describes Maggie Salinas’ community involvement and contributions to Kingsville during the last half of the twentieth century and first part of twenty-first century. A business owner, Salinas volunteered her time and resources to many local and regional organizations. The projects range from La Posada de Kingsville to being a member on the Advisory Board with the Texas A&M University-Kingsville Engineering Department.

Colored Trainmen of America (C.T. of A.) Records
The new St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway, headquartered in Kingsville, opened up jobs for African-American workers. The African-American workers were not allowed to be in white unions so they formed their own, the Colored Trainmen of America, which was formed in Kingsville, Texas by the black railroad workers of the Gulf Coast Line.

Pat Allison's Papers and Voices from the Archives Collection
This ongoing project was created to stimulate interest in the South Texas Archives. It began as collaboration between the University Archivist, Lori Atkins and Patricia Allison, a writer for the Kingsville Record and Bishop News. In 2016 Lori asked Pat if she would be interested in researching collections at South Texas Archives and writing a monthly article in the local newspaper to highlight and describe the contents and families who donated these collections to the university archive. Historical events, local history of Texas A&M University-Kingsville and of this region of South Texas were part of these collections which would be of interest to both communities. The first article was published August 28, 2016 in the Sunday edition of the local newspaper under the title, 'Voices.' Other writings by Pat Allison beyond the 'Voices' articles were added in 2018.

Watson Family Collection
The Watson Family Collection is a collection from the early settlers of Kingsville, Oliver S. and Ella Watson who built and operated a boarding house on 5th Street. Their children worked on the railroad, joined the service, married and eventually moved to Houston and other places in Texas. The McAllister's, the Sell's, and the Bohanan's were all related by marriage to the Watson's.

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.

Olan E. Kruse Collection
Olan E. Kruse came to Texas College of Arts in Industries as an undergraduate and received a Bachelor of Arts in Physics in 1942. After serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he earned advanced degrees in Physics, taught at Stephen F. Austin College and ultimately returned to Texas A&I as chairman of the Physics Department where he supervised the design and construction of Hill Hall, the Physics Building, served as chairman of the ad hoc committee which established the Faculty Senate and was the founding president of the campus Faculty Senate.

J. R. Manning Collection
Dr. J. R. Manning was elected Head of the Department of Business Administration at the South Texas Teachers College in 1925. Throughout his forty-four year career, from 1925 to 1969, Dr. Manning directed the growth and direction of the Business Administration Department and was actively involved with several business-related student fraternities and clubs. Upon his retirement in 1969, the University named the building that housed the Business Administration Department since 1925 in his honor, Manning Hall. He went on to become Kingsville's mayor for three terms. Dr. J. R. Manning was given the status of Professor Emeritus in 1982 and he was the last surviving member of the original faculty of the South Texas State Teachers College, now Texas A&M University-Kingsville. His papers show his academic achievements and his dedication to the Business Administration Department and the University.

Agnes G. Grimm Collection
Agnes Grimm was an author and collector of area history. An area school teacher of Texas history, she kept extensive notes, photographs and maps about the history of South Texas and her personal effort to document it. Her book, Llanos Mestenas, was published in 1968.

Mother Mercedes Henriquetta Pena Lane Papers
14 negatives (copies) of Mother Mercedes Henriquetta Pena Lane (Mother Lane), her family, and the patients she served as a curandera in the Kingsville, TX area during the 1930s.

Worth Wright Photographs
Photograph copies of Worth Wright. He was the superintendent of King Ranch during the 1930s. Various other workers and family members are photographed at the Ranch.

Kathryn Fugate Evans Collection
Kathryn Roberts Fugate Evans came to Kingsville in 1926. She was instrumental in preserving the history of Kingsville writing articles and her book “Come Aboard’ and her involvement with the preservation of historic buildings in town and service organizations. Materials cover her research into railroads, Chamberlain Cemetery, and papers/articles and speeches. Her work on the Kleberg County Historic Commission includes documenting historical events and places resulting in the placement of Official Texas Historical Markers.