Taft, TX

Taft is a San Patricio County city in the Corpus Christi metro, a place whose name is tied to one of South Texas’s large ranching stories. The Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company’s land eventually passed through David Sinton’s family to Charles Phelps Taft, and the operation became known locally as the Taft Ranch. The city was formed as a company town in 1904, sold at auction in 1921, and left behind a town after the ranch enterprises were gone by 1928.

The Blackland Museum keeps that company-town chapter tangible in the former ranch headquarters on Green Avenue. The two-story brick building once held company offices, two banks, a drugstore, and a barber shop; its exhibits now cover farm equipment, ranching, and everyday life in the early community. Taft Independent School District serves the city through Woodrow Petty Elementary, Taft Junior High, and Taft High School. Cotton remains part of the local vocabulary, alongside oil and gas production that helped define the area. Taft is a place where the ranch map still sits underneath the school district, museum, and working South Texas city.