Ohio native Joseph French Green came to South Texas after the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad was built. During a lawsuit in 1886, opposing counsel David Sinton was so impressed by Green that he hired him to manage the 224,000-acre Catarina Ranch near Gregory. Four years later, Sinton appointed Green manager of the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company, which spanned Aransas and San Patricio counties. Green renovated the ranch by introducing new farming methods, crops, and cattle breeds. He married Mae Mathis, daughter of Thomas Mathis, a founder of the Coleman, Mathis, Fulton Cattle Company, and built her La Quinta Mansion in 1906-07. The three-story house stood three miles south of Gregory overlooking Corpus Christi Bay and was large enough to host ranch guests, with twelve bedrooms, six baths, a second-floor gallery, and a top-floor observation deck. President William Howard Taft, half brother of Charles P. Taft, majority owner of the Coleman Fulton Pasture Company, was among the first guests to stay there, and during his October 1909 visit the ranch held a rodeo and barbecue in his honor. When Green died from surgery complications on November 20, 1926, he was president of the Taft Bank and the First National Bank of Gregory and served on the boards of the Odem and Sinton banks; he was buried in Taft Cemetery. La Quinta was the core of the region and was known as the White House of the Taft Ranch, but in January 1938 the mansion was ruined by fire.