Latest news from Orrum, NC collected exclusively by city-data.com from local newspapers, TV, and radio stations. Ancestries: English (12.2%), French (7.3%), Scotch-Irish (2.4%), Scottish (2.4%), United States (2.4%). Current Local Time: EST time zone. Elevation: 205 feet. Land area: 0.56 square miles.
At the time of his death, in 1885, founder Richard King owned half a million acres and was the wealthiest man in Texas. His grandson Robert J. Kleberg Jr. built the business into a 15-million-acre global empire, with ranches spread from Argentina to Australia.
According to a 1984 publication of the Kingsville Chamber of Commerce, the ranch then employed 700 people; today it has 300. King Ranch Oil and Gas Inc., the energy subsidiary, saw the taxable value of its oil-and-gas leases in Kleberg County drop from $87.6 million in 1983 to $40.3 million in 1986.