[7] Large herds of mustangs roamed the south Texas plains, often drinking from the waters of spring fed creeks in and around present-day Kingsville.

In 1846, General Zachary Taylor and his army camped along the banks of the Santa Gertrudis prior to their campaign into Mexico.

In 1899, after many failed attempts, King ranch manager Robert J. Kleberg, Jr., was finally able to tap into an underground lake of water.

The community would also house the headquarters of the newly formed St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway, a deal that was reached with railroad magnate Benjamin Yoakum.

[10] The first buildings were constructed, track was laid through the town, and the first train passed through Kingsville on July 4, 1904, considered the founding date of the city.

[11] By the close of the first decade of the 20th century, Kingsville already had a thriving business scene, with an active commercial club, that was the forerunner of the city's chamber of commerce today.

[14] The Ku Klux Klan had a presence in the town, boosting a mayor to election in 1922, and was responsible for the lynching of a visiting African-American physician from nearby Bishop in 1923.

The effort to open the school, led by King Ranch heir Caesar Kleberg and the city's commercial club, had been delayed due to political considerations in the state legislature, and funding issues from World War I.

[6] In addition to offering a large swath of undergraduate and graduate degrees, the university is home to the National Natural Toxins Research Center, the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute, and the Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy, the doctorate of pharmacy program for the Texas A&M University system.

During the national defense build up to World War II, local civic leaders and Congressman Richard Kleberg, another heir to the King Ranch, lobbied the War Department to choose Kingsville and other South Texas communities as a future site for a military airfield.

[15] In 1941, a naval air station opened in nearby Corpus Christi, after lobbying efforts by Congressman Kleberg, and began training pilots for the Navy and Marine Corps.

Following Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into the war, the need for increased pilot training and additional auxiliary airfields led to the Navy selecting Kingsville as the site of one, among several other municipalities.

[16] Plans were drawn up in 1941 and, in 1942, the U.S. Navy opened the new training airfield, Naval Air Auxiliary Station Kingsville, just to the east of town.

[16] Following World War II, the field was placed into a mothball status, but reopened shortly thereafter in 1951, and has been continuously operating since.

Kingsville is located in the geographic Gulf Coastal Plain region of the United States, known as the Coastal Bend in Texas, bordered by the Gulf of Mexico and Baffin Bay to the east, and the South Texas Plains or brush country to the north, west and south.

Additionally, Kingsville is a winter home to a large number of waterfowl species, including geese, ducks, and pelicans.

The city was planned in a grid system, and consists mostly of neighborhoods and subdivisions, as well as retail strip malls, located north and south of the main downtown area.

Historic downtown runs from City Hall to the Kleberg County Courthouse, and features several buildings dating back to the turn of the century.

[18] Due to the city's close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, several hurricanes and tropical storms have made landfall in Kingsville.

In 1916, a Category 4 hurricane made landfall at Baffin Bay and directly hit Kingsville, inflicting nearly $100,000 of damage.

[19] Illinois' Governor Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne, who had been in the state inspecting Army camps along the Texas-Mexico border, was marooned in Kingsville overnight during the storm.

[30] The main economic driving forces in the city and the surrounding region are agriculture, oil and natural gas production, chemical refining, tourism, and the military.

Additionally, the Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy (part of the Texas A&M Health Science Center) is located on the campus of TAMUK.