Cow Creek Chronicles by Gregory Enns explores the history of cattle ranching in Florida through the century-long saga of the Raulerson family, pioneers who moved south to Florida during the 1800s and built a cattle empire between Fort Pierce and Okeechobee.
We asked Gregory Enns some questions about his new book, which we’re sharing below.
When did you know that you wanted to write this book? What led you to this subject?
Some of my earliest memories are of Cow Creek Ranch and the Cow Creek waterway. My mom was good friends with the ranch’s owner, Jo Ann Sloan, so I watched much of the story unfold during my childhood. For the last 20 years, my mom has urged me to write Jo Ann’s life story.
Why is the Raulerson family and its cattle ranching legacy important to Florida history?
It’s important because the Raulerson family’s migration and settlement story is typical of how early ranches were established, giving us insight into this period. We have documentation and oral histories of the Raulerson family’s migration and how Frank Raulerson established a cattle ranch at Cow Creek in the days of the open range. But with the influx of settlers like the Raulersons came the displacement of Seminoles living along the creek. It’s important to recognize this multifaceted history, which I attempt to capture in Cow Creek Chronicles.
Where can you see the history told in Cow Creek Chronicles reflected in the Florida of today?
Take a drive virtually anywhere to the interior of the state in Central and South Florida and you’ll see endless cattle ranches with improved pastures that once were swamp or hard scrub. I imagine that each of those ranches has a history as colorful as that of Cow Creek. More ranches these days are offering eco-tours, the biggest operation of which is Babcock Ranch near Punta Gorda. Adams Ranch, which lies west of Fort Pierce, and on which part of the old Cow Creek Ranch is located, hosts “Ranch Days,’’ which provide public tours of the ranch and its museum. The city of Port St. Lucie has created a park out of the old McCarty Ranch, which was run by the family of a former Florida governor.
What was one of the most surprising things you discovered while researching for this book?
Through census records and old newspaper accounts, we were able to establish that Emateloye Estenletkvte, known also as Polly Parker, who was an important figure in Seminole history, and other family members lived along Cow Creek. As a child, I knew that Seminoles had lived along the creek, and through census records I was able to establish their identities. A big part of the tribe, mostly speakers and their descendants, are known as Cow Creek Seminoles.
What do you hope readers will enjoy the most about your book?
I hope the book gives them an idea about how early Florida was settled and how early cattle ranches were established. They’ll find out about how scrub cattle—escapees from the Spanish colonizers of the sixteenth century—became Florida’s foundation herd until the arrival of purebreds in the twentieth century. I hope they’ll also get a sense of Florida in the days of the open range, when cattle grazed freely throughout the state without fences, as well as the people who labored day-in and day-out to create and maintain the ranches.
Learn more about Cow Creek Chronicles
Gregory Enns is the founder of Indian River Media Group, a company that publishes magazines for Florida’s Treasure Coast and Space Coast. A fifth-generation Floridian, Enns has worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Florida and Alabama for over 25 years.
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