Kichimatsu Kishi
Kichimatsu Kishi (岸 吉松 Kishi Kichimatsu, ?–1956) was a Japanese immigrant to the United States who worked as a farmer and businessman. Along with fellow immigrants from Japan, his impact on rice farming in the southern United States would change the agricultural industry of the region. Kishi would establish an agricultural colony in Southeast Texas and would own an oil company. Born as one of eight children to a Japanese banker, he attended Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Japan, but was taken from his studies in 1904 to fight in the Russo-Japanese War.
He was eventually sent to Manchuria on the mainland of China where he remained until the Japanese victory in 1905. He considered remaining there, but the high cost of land and lawlessness prompted him to return to his homeland. Years earlier, Sadatsuchi Uchida (Japan’s consul to the United States) toured the southern United States in 1902. Uchida reported back to Japan with promising news that the rice farming was underdeveloped and showed potential for large profit. At the time, the dense population of Japan and limited workable land meant that many rice farmers would never own their own land. This sparked Kishi’s interest in migrating to the United States in 1906.
He looked for suitable land, starting in California and moving on to the Carolinas, and finally discovering the area near the town of Terry in central Orange County, Texas ideal. Located as one of the stops of the Texas and New Orleans Railroad, Terry was a lumber and agricultural town with nearby bayous that could be tapped for irrigation. It was here that Kishi would establish what is now known as the Kishi Colony. He purchased a land tract of approximately 3,500 acres (14 km2) with borrowed money in 1907, and by the following year, his family would reside there with the first rice crop established.
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