University of Texas
Armstrong Family Photograph Collection
The Armstrong Family is one of South Texas' oldest and outstanding pioneer families. This collection of approximately 200 negatives and photographs cover the years from 1890 to 1930 but focus on the early Armstrong family around the 1920s and 1930s.
Gray & Jesse Golden Collection
The collection of 2,325 Texanna volumes contains many rare and out of print editions that tell the history of South Texas from San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley.
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.
Joe Stanley Graham Jr. Collection
Joe Stanley Graham, professor of Anthropology and folklore at Texas A&M University-Kingsville from 1988 until shortly before his death in 1999 lived and worked on ranches in southwest Texas ultimately studying at the University of Texas, Austin with Dr. Amerigo Paredes, a leading folklorist from south Texas. Dr. Graham continued Dr. Paredes work of collecting materials about the rural Mexican and Mexican American communities, the people and their folkways. Hundreds of photographs, interviews, student term papers, and research materials used for museum exhibits have been saved for future researchers of his favored topic.
S. Burgin Dunn Collection
S. Burgin Dunn was a veteran of the navy in World War II, taught physics and mathematics at Texas A&I University (now Texas A&M University-Kingsville,) had a family and was involved with the First United Methodist Church in Kingsville, Texas. This collection reflects the professional life of Burgin Dunn and his love of astronomy and physics.
Dr. Otis Malvin (Monty) Montgomery Papers
Dr. Otis Malvin (Monty) Montgomery was a journalism professor at Texas College of Arts and Industries. This collection is an autobiographical account of his life from 1907 to 1993.
Ladd Family Collection
The Ladd Family Collection consists primarily of personal correspondence between family members, photographs and scrapbook, legal materials, financial materials. Pauline Schostag Ladd (mother) or Robert Boyd Ladd (son) wrote or received the majority of the correspondence. The correspondence takes place mostly during the 20th century. Both Pauline and Boyd were educators, Pauline at the elementary level and Boyd at the university level. The collection also documents most of the educational achievements of the family, and includes many of the diplomas and certificates. Reprocessing occurred in 2018 with the original accession numbers left on individual items and keeping the original order.
Conner Family Collection
John E. Conner was a member of the first faculty at the South Texas State Teachers College that opened in Kingsville in 1925. He was a chairman of the history department, and later dean of the college. He trained students in history by having them visit historic sites and collect documents throughout South Texas; establishing the Robert J. Kleberg History Club and laying the foundation of the South Texas Archives. He left personal papers, records of the South Texas Historical Association, and the early days of Texas College of Arts & Industries as well as research materials from his work and his study. His son, Dr. William Conner and his daughter-in-law Katherine Smith Conner also gave historical records, and family photographs.