Kenedy County (Brownsville, Kingsville, Wells: fit in, buy, living in)

[CA central coast]

I'm just curious. I'm looking at a map right now and that county looks desolate with no roads to the ocean and three small towns. What's going on there?

[NOTAM]

Kenedy County is one of the least populated counties in the USA. I drove through it quite a bit,since I lived just a few miles north of it last year. All I know is that the county seat is Sarita, and there is a very busy border patrol checkpoint there and some barracks for border patrol agents. Dick Cheney was on a hunt at the Armstrong Ranch in Kenedy County during that famous incident, after which he was brought to Kingsville for medical treatment FIRST (then to Corpus).
Sarita is a very small town with several very pretty historic buildings, one being the Kenedy Ranch Museum. Kenedy was a big time ranching family there.
King Ranch takes up a bunch of land in Kenedy County, as it does Kleberg County, and also partly into the west to Jim Wells County, slightly to the south into Willacy County, and also to the east to Nueces County (where Corpus is).
There are lots of cattle in Kenedy County-thats pretty much all I would see driving thru, besides border patrol vehicles, and of course the usual black SUV's that are the Narcotics Task Force, very busy on Hwy 77, a major drug smuggling route.
Kenedy County is vast and desolate, and I dealt with alot of the border patrol down there in Sarita, and I heard lots of stories from them regarding illegals found dead in the brush country-probably from heat stroke, dehydration, snake bites, or rhabdomyolysis. There was even a feature article within the past year and half in Texas Monthly that called Kenedy County "Los Desierto de los Muertos" (Desert of the Dead) due to the fact that it has become somewhat of an unmarked graveyard for the many illegals who expire from the South Texas elements.
I actually thought Kenedy County was kinda pretty (I do like rural areas, lots of cattle)...as much as I disliked living in South Texas, I did enjoy that drive.
Anyway, to answer your question, not much is going on down there, except for cattle ranching, farming, private hunts on Armstrong Ranch and other ranches, and the border patrol/illegals activity.
I dont recall any routes to Padre/gulf areas off of Hwy 77 in Kenedy County. I always went to Riviera which is pronounced Rivera unlike its spelling(between Ricardo and Sarita) in Kleberg County, to drive to Laguna Madre, Loyola Beach (not much of a beach) and Baffin Bay, and to of course eat at the Kings Inn (where you buy seafood by the pound)..they have the most AWESOME tartar sauce (and it is NOT like tartar sauce, it is more like a spread, and i could make a meal out of it spread on saltines), and their avocado salad and fresh sliced tomatos, that come with each meal. I always ordered the King Crab Legs. It was pretty much one of the only decent places to eat within miles, so I went there often. Unfortunately, most of the seafood is fried-fried shrimp, oysters etc. and they also have frog legs.

[ChristieP]

The King Ranch is HUGE! Check out their website: King Ranch

[teatime]

LOL, when I lived in Brownsville, we had to drive through there to get just about anywhere. We referred to it as the "70 miles of nothing." And it literally is! You do NOT want to drive through at night or really in the morning because you could hit a deer and with nothing for many, many miles, that would be problematic.

It became a tradition for us to eat at the Barn Door restaurant in Riviera when we emerged from the "nothing." That place looks awful from the outside but the food is GREAT and incredibly inexpensive!

[NOTAM]

yep eaten at the Barn Door. good chicken fried steak. cozy homey lookin kinda place. probably the ONLY restaurant in that area that reminded me of small town Texas, not Mexico. i think i even saw a few men wearing cowboy hats and Wranglers there. yep.couldnt believe it. i felt like i fit in there. the ONE place. if i went anywhere else around those parts dressed like that, i stood out......

Originally Posted by teatime

LOL, when I lived in Brownsville, we had to drive through there to get just about anywhere. We referred to it as the "70 miles of nothing." And it literally is! You do NOT want to drive through at night or really in the morning because you could hit a deer and with nothing for many, many miles, that would be problematic.

It became a tradition for us to eat at the Barn Door restaurant in Riviera when we emerged from the "nothing." That place looks awful from the outside but the food is GREAT and incredibly inexpensive!

[TexasNick]

Yea i liked the food there. Anyone ever been to that restaurant across the streat before it closed down years ago? I think it was called SOUTHERN FRIED CHICKEN...it was a red/barn like place. Surprised to see no one has purchased it and opened up another restaurant.