Yesterday, I made an oblique reference to the nature of Kenedy County when provinding my $0.02 on the Cheney hunting accident.
Apparently TalkLeft has become acquainted with Kenedy County. It’s an interesting read, and my attempting to quote excerpts from it wouldn’t do it justice. However, following links downward from the article, one finds this article profiling Kenedy County:
Kenedy County, among the last Texas counties formed, was not established until 1921, when Willacy, Cameron, and Hidalgo counties were reorganized. The stated reason for the county’s formation was the considerable distance to the county seats of the other counties. But perhaps more important was the attempt of ranching interests to stave off the growing power of farmers who were beginning to develop the Rio Grande valley. The new county seat was established at Sarita, where John G. Kenedy, son of the founder of the King Ranch, had built his headquarters. Since that time the county has changed little. Although Kenedy County was a ranching area from the advent of the Spanish to the early 1990s, there have never been more than twenty-five ranches in the county, and most of the land still remains in the hands of the Armstrong, King, Kenedy, and Yturria interests. [...] Oil was discovered in the county in 1947, and in the early 1990s oil and natural gas accounted for the largest source of nonfarm earnings.[...]
The same families that helped Mifflin Kenedy and Richard King to build their empires continue to work on the ranches. In Kenedy County locals are still sometimes identified as Kiņenos and Kenedanos, as workers at the King or Kenedy ranches. These individuals are tied to those ranches by generations of tradition, and as late as the 1990s their lives had changed little. Until very recently most Kiņenos and Kenedanos were uneducated; only 15 percent of the population over twenty-five had received a high school education in the mid-1970s. There was little opportunity for economic advancement, and many county residents stayed on the ranch for their entire lives. Traditionally the children of these individuals, boys especially, were encouraged to train in specific ranching techniques and take over their parents’ roles. This system provided a constant labor supply for the ranches and helped to control wages to the benefit of the ranches’ owners.
The TalkLeft article does have a good closing line worth noting:
Kenedy County and the Armstrong ranch: where Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and other wealthy Republicans go hunting every year.