Caesar`s Gun Comes Home - Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research

CAESAR kLEBERG WiLDLiFE
RESEARCH iNSTiTUTE
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY-KINGSVILLE
Caesar’s Gun Comes Home
Article by fred bryant
Photos courtesy of tio kleberg and CkWRi
L
yman Cornelius smith was
an american innovator and
industrialist. His first business
venture in 1873 was to open a livestock
commission in New York. This business
failed but by 1877, he and his family
were in the business of building firearms.
Lyman was not of the “smith and
Wesson” family or namesake, but he was
in the business of building guns. His
brother Leroy split off of the company to
form Ithaca gun Company, while Lyman
and his younger brother Wilbert went
on to produce popular breech-loading
shotguns under the L.C. smith shotgun
Company of syracuse, NY. He sold
the entire gun manufacturing rights to
Hunter arms in 1889, which produced
L.C. smith shotguns for several decades.
Later, Hunter arms was sold to Marlin
firearms Company in 1945.
It was an engraved 20 gauge, side-byside L.C. smith shotgun that showed up
at rancho santa gertrudis on february
3, 1912.
We believe this shotgun was shipped
by train from New York to kingsville.
The train tracks were completed by then
and trains were running from agua
Dulce through kingsville to Brownsville
by 1904. In 1900, 27-year old Caesar
kleberg had arrived to work for his
uncle robert kleberg sr. and Mrs.
Henrietta king and no doubt, being the
keen observer of wildlife that he was,
noticed that bobwhite quail and doves flourished across the ranch
acreages. In those days, all a hunter needed was a good dog and
good shotgun.
as the picture portrays, Mr. Caesar, as he was fondly known, had
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TEXAS WILDLIFE
august 2014
Tio Kleberg, at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife
Center, holding Caesar’s shotgun as he stands
next to a photo of Caesar Kleberg with his
shotgun and one of his hunting dogs.
a good bird dog, and a good shotgun. We are not sure how many
hunting partners he had over the years, but we do know that he
had a close personal friend in John Henry (Jack) kidd II, a man
with whom he enjoyed hunts in the field. Mr. kidd was an attorney
for a couple of years in kingsville handling the affairs of rancho
C aesar k leberg w i ldl i fe research i nst i tute
The engraved plate of the magazine of Caesar’s shotgun.
Santa Gertrudis (now King Ranch), who
later moved to the Rio Grande Valley to
set up his law practice. We suppose that
he and Mr. Caesar kept close ties because
Mr. Caesar moved to the Norias Division
as manager in early 1900s. It would have
been easy to have maintained a hunting
friendship with Mr. Kidd; Mr. Caesar’s
house on the railroad tracks was just 10
miles north of Raymondville.
Sometime before his death in 1946,
probably in 1940 or so, we believe he gave
his prized L.C. Smith 20 gauge to Mr. Kidd.
Mr. Caesar had no heirs; he was a bachelor
his entire life. Three years after Mr. Caesar
died, Mr. Kidd was tragically killed in a
boating accident in 1949, and we believe
the L.C. Smith was passed on to his eldest
son, John Henry Kidd III, in the probation
of his will. John Henry III married Trudy in
1960 and they lived in Double Oaks, Texas,
most of their married lives.
Fast forward to 1971. After graduating
from Texas Tech, Tio Kleberg and his
wife Janell moved to El Paso where Tio
served his term of duty in the U.S. Army
at Ft. Bliss. While there, they became good
friends with Jed Becker and kept in touch
with him over the years, even after Tio
and Janell moved back to Kingsville where
he became Vice President of King Ranch.
When John Henry III passed away 2 years
ago, their son Dr. Joe Kidd, a surgeon in El
Paso, contacted Jed about selling the L.C.
Smith Shotgun, which his mother Trudy
had in her possession.
So a surprising phone call came from Jed
to Tio in the fall of 2012 to let him know
that his friend Trudy had a shotgun and that
she thought might have belonged to Caesar
Kleberg and possibly was interested in
selling it. Tio’s ears perked up immediately
when he heard this news because he knew
nothing of this shotgun or if Mr. Caesar
even owned an L.C. Smith.
He asked Jed to get some more
information on the gun, primarily to
check out the providence and authenticity
of this firearm through the Cody Firearm
Museum in Cody, Wyoming, the keeper
of all records of L.C. Smith guns and serial
numbers. Jed contacted Fred L. McDaniel,
a gun appraiser, to follow up and research
the shotgun. The gun checked out to be an
authentic L.C. Smith and more exciting,
etched in gold on the trigger guard, were
the initials CK (see photo). Sure enough,
the 20 gauge had been delivered to Rancho
Santa Gertrudis in 1912.
This confirmation launched Tio into
action. Through funds from Caesar’s own
Foundation, the Caesar Kleberg Foundation
for Wildlife Conservation, which was
created by his last will and testament, Tio,
along with contributions from Jed Becker
and Duncan Spillar, purchased the shotgun.
On February 3, 2013, 101 years after it
was delivered to Rancho Santa Gertrudis,
Tio presented the L.C. Smith Shotgun to
Dr. Steven Tallant, President of Texas A&M
University-Kingsville, to forever be held in
trust by his namesake, the Caesar Kleberg
Wildlife Research Institute.
It seems fitting to end this article with the
words of the late Paul Harvey, famed radio
commentator and news columnist, “And,
now, you know the rest of the story.”
Caesar Kleberg's initials on the trigger guard of his shotgun.
www.texas-wildlife.org
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