Florida Crackers, Cow Hunters and Cracker Cattle

Florida Crackers were early pioneers, mostly small farmers and cattle ranchers, and Cracker cowboys are sometimes called cow hunters because their cattle wandered the open range (State Archives of Florida).

Where the word came from is still argued. The State Archives folklife page gives two explanations: the crack of the whips settlers used to herd cattle, or the cracked corn that went into frontier moonshine (Florida Memory folklife). The Division of Historical Resources goes with the whip, describing the cowboys' families as proudly known as Florida crackers from the sound of the whip crack used to drive the cattle (Division of Historical Resources).

Ranch vocabulary in Florida differs from the West. The State Archives ranching exhibit says Floridians who owned or worked cattle were traditionally called cowmen, that in the late 1800s they were often called cow hunters because they hunted scattered cattle through wooded range at roundup, and that cowman and Cracker have at times meant the same thing (Florida Memory ranching exhibit). The folklife page adds that Crackers can also be told apart by their frontier houses, music and food (Florida Memory folklife). Last verified: October 18, 2026, with a fresh read of both State Archives exhibits, two Department of Agriculture breed pages, the 2026 text of s. 15.0526 and s. 15.0527, and the Lake Kissimmee park listing.

Cracker cattle descend from Spanish livestock brought in the 1500s, later mixed with British breeds (Division of Historical Resources; Florida Memory).

The Department of Agriculture traces the first animals to Juan Ponce de Leon, who brought a small herd of Andalusian cattle and horses on his 1521 expedition and landed near present Fort Myers, and to Don Diego Maldonado, who brought cattle and horses to Pensacola Bay in 1540 to supply Hernando de Soto (Department of Agriculture). The State Archives is more cautious, saying some scholars believe animals from those two expeditions escaped and survived in the wild, and it dates organized ranching to the founding of St. Augustine in 1565 (Florida Memory).

The two state agencies count the colonial herd a little differently. For 1700, the State Archives gives approximately 34 ranches and 20,000 head of cattle (Florida Memory), while the Department of Agriculture gives over 30 privately owned ranchos and a Spanish tax census of over 20,000 cattle, with mission herds exempt from the count (Department of Agriculture).

Native peoples carried the herds through the 1700s. After British and Creek raids in 1702 and 1704 wrecked the Spanish ranches, the State Archives says, Indians sustained cattle raising, and the Seminoles remained the main livestock producers for most of that century; the State Archives points to the name of their leader, Cowkeeper (about 1710 to 1783), as evidence of how vital cattle were to them (Florida Memory). Ranching itself blended Andalusian vaquero practice with the herding of highland Britain and Ireland, where drovers used dogs and whips (Florida Memory).

Cattle grazed unfenced range wherever the grass was best, and at branding or market time the cow hunters combed the woods with whips and cattle dogs to gather them (State Archives of Florida).

When the United States took over Florida in 1821, the State Archives exhibit says, the territory was described as plentifully stocked with wild cattle, and the scrub or Cracker cattle of that era tolerated heat, insects and many diseases on native forage alone (Florida Memory). Drives were long: cowmen spent weeks or months crossing marsh and scrub, sometimes taking cattle from central Florida as far as Jacksonville, Savannah and Charleston. After the Armed Occupation Act of 1842, cattlemen from Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas homesteaded 200,000 acres, and few of them owned grazing land because the open range was so large (Florida Memory).

Food came off the land. The Division of Historical Resources says cowboys on the trail ate dried beef and swamp cabbage, the heart of the sabal palmetto that covered lands in central and south Florida by the thousands, often with tomato gravy, rice and cornbread, while their families ate venison, wild turkey, quail, soft shell turtle and okra (Division of Historical Resources).

Selling cattle to Cuba gave Cracker ranchers their cash market, from Spanish times through a gold-paid boom after the Civil War (Department of Agriculture; Florida Memory).

Ships were packed. A State Archives photo caption from Punta Rassa says cattle were pushed along chutes onto schooners running between Punta Rassa, Tampa, St. Andrews Bay, Charlotte Harbor and Cuba, many carrying 200 head or more a trip (Florida Memory). During the Civil War the exhibit says hides, tallow and meat mattered so much to the Confederacy that a Cow Cavalry was formed to guard herds from Union raiders (Florida Memory).

The postwar trade made fortunes. The Department of Agriculture says cowmen left holding worthless Confederate dollars insisted on gold, and names pioneer families in the trade, among them the Roberts, Carltons, Lykes, Summerlins, McKays, Hendrys, Aldermans and Wells (Department of Agriculture). The State Archives profiles Jacob Summerlin (1820 to 1893), who sold cattle to Cuba and the Key West naval base, owned a wharf at Punta Rassa, and later donated the land for Lake Eola Park in Orlando (Florida Memory).

Crossbreeding nearly erased pure Cracker cattle by the late 1960s, and a 1970 donation to the state began the herd that the Department of Agriculture still keeps (Department of Agriculture).

The department's account: northern European beef and dairy breeds arrived in the late 1800s, Brahman and Brahman cross bulls from the 1930s changed herds further, and the Florida Fence Law brought changes to the open range, and crossing old Cracker cows with Brahman became popular. By the late 1960s only a handful of pure animals were left on scattered family ranches (Department of Agriculture).

In 1970 the daughters of pioneer cattleman James Durrance gave five heifers and a bull to the department on behalf of the Florida Cattlemen's Association. That Durrance line lived first at the Agricultural Complex in Tallahassee and then, from 1979, also at the Withlacoochee State Forest near Brooksville. The Florida Department of Natural Resources started separate herds at Lake Kissimmee State Park and Paynes Prairie State Preserve in the 1970s. In 1984 the family of rancher John Law Ayers donated a small herd of Cracker horses, the base of the department's Ayers line, and the Florida Cracker Cattle Association and Florida Cracker Horse Association were formed in 1988 (Department of Agriculture).

Breed standards are specific. A department page by a University of Florida animal scientist says foundation animals carry the FC brand after passing three evaluators, that cows run small to moderate at 600 to 1,000 pounds, and that nearly any color is accepted except the gray of Brahman cattle (Department of Agriculture breed page).

Yes, Florida law names the Florida Cracker Horse the official state horse and Florida Cracker Cattle the official heritage cattle breed (Florida Statutes section 15.0526; section 15.0527).

Section 15.0526 of the 2026 Florida Statutes designates the Florida Cracker Horse, which it also calls the Marshtackie, as the official state horse; its history line cites chapter 2008-34 and chapter 2018-43, Laws of Florida (Florida Statutes). Section 15.0527 designates Florida Cracker Cattle as the official Florida heritage cattle breed, citing chapter 2018-43 (Florida Statutes). The Department of Agriculture says Spanish horses were highly prized for transportation in Florida because they could travel in rough conditions where other horses failed (Department of Agriculture).

Lake Kissimmee State Park stages living history of early Florida cow hunters in an 1876-era cow camp, and the Florida Cracker Cattle Association's annual fall Gatherin' has been held at the Withlacoochee State Forest since 1989 (Florida State Parks; Department of Agriculture).

Lake Kissimmee State Park is at 14248 Camp Mack Road, Lake Wales (863-696-1112), open 8 a.m. to sunset every day for $5 per vehicle. The park posts that its campgrounds are closed for a renovation project effective Feb. 17, 2026 (Florida State Parks).

The Florida Cracker Cattle Association Annual Gatherin' and Sale is held each fall and, since 1989, at the Withlacoochee State Forest, hosted by the Department of Agriculture and the association; since 1990 it has included a sale of Cracker cattle and horses, and the department says the Gatherin' gave rise to the Great Florida Cattle Drive of 1995 (Department of Agriculture).

The sound of the culture is archived too. The State Archives folklife page streams recordings such as Claude Sheppard's Whip Crackers from 1958 and a 1956 whip cracking demonstration (Florida Memory folklife), and the Division of Historical Resources links a Cracker foodways and poetry demonstration from the 2007 Florida Folk Festival (Division of Historical Resources).