Joel Hudgins, born in 1800 in North Carolina, came to the Republic of Texas in 1839 and settled in the Hungerford area. He married Rachel Ann Northington McKenzie in 1847 and was elected county commissioner in 1854. After Joel's death, Rachel and their four sons began buying more land and expanding the ranching operation, with Josiah Dawson, known as J. D. Hudgins, heading the family's interests. He also owned a store, cotton gin, and sawmill, and grew rice. In 1897 the four brothers divided the family property and operated independently. In 1915 J. D. and his children purchased their first purebred Brahman cows, descendants of the herd brought from India by A. P. Borden in 1906. J. D.'s son Walter Hudgins helped organize the American Brahman Breeders Association in 1924. The ranch acquired the bull Manso in 1933, and Manso's descendants became the cornerstone stock from which its American Gray Brahman herd was developed, now one of the largest registered American Gray Brahman herds in the world. Cattle from the ranch have been exported to more than forty-two countries and thirty-four states in the U.S. In 1962 the ranching partnership was reorganized into five separate entities, each operated by descendants of J. D. Hudgins.