Cowboy Life Still Flourishes In Florida

We tend to speak of Florida "Crackers" as if they're a thing of the past. They were old cowhunters -- named for the crack of their whips -- whose way of living in the Central Florida scrub has long since passed, we think. It's an image that couldn't be further from the truth. Throughout our region, there are still cattlemen who thrive on those old values, even if their cattle-raising methods have changed. And many are caretakers of some of the most pristine wildlife habitats left in Florida. "(Ranches) are intact, whole ecosystems," said Carlton Ward Jr., an eighth-generation Floridian and photographer. "They are protecting natural habitat." The history of the cattle industry in Florida -- and the many people who are helping keep that tradition alive -- are the subject of two new exhibits that opened last week at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. The first exhibit, "Florida Cattle Ranching: Five Centuries of Tradition," follows the history of the cattle industry from the time Ponce de Leon brought the first Andalusia cattle to Florida in the 1500s through the modernization of ranching methods in the 20th century. It shows how the Spanish, the English, Scots, blacks, Cubans and Seminoles have all had a hand in -- and an influence on -- the development of the cattle industry in Florida...more