Humans are not the only animals who make history, but we are the only ones who write it. Agricultural and environmental historians are increasingly integrating the lives of non-human animals into their research agendas, giving agency and voice to the inarticulate beings whose lives, labors, and experiences are omnipresent in our landscapes, foodways, and cultures. But as Hanna Lipsey reveals in this essay, some animals are exceedingly difficult to locate, either in historical archives or in the material present.

Hanna Lipsey is a Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Florida Gulf Coast University.

We welcome essays that apply the stories and methodologies of our allied fields to the issues that currently affect our daily lives. If you are interested in contributing, please contact Adrienne Petty (ampetty@wm.edu), Shane Hamilton (shane.hamilton@york.ac.uk) , or Cherisse Jones-Branch (crjones@astate.edu). This post should be cited as: Lipsey, “Finding the Florida Cracker Horse,” The Short Rows, 9 May 2025. https://www.aghistorysociety.org/ahs-blog/lipsey-finding-the-florida-cracker-horse

Finding the Florida Cracker Horse

Hanna Lipsey

Open prairie where bison and horses roam, in Florida? Yes, although Florida is usually associated with gators and orange groves, Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park hosts a wide array of Florida’s flora and fauna. Gators, seemingly ever present in the state, reside within Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, but so do birds, deer, and bison. Perhaps most unexpected is the elusive feral horse herd of Florida Cracker Horses that were reintroduced to the park in the mid-1980s. The park located in north central Florida--about ten miles south of the University of Florida in Gainesville and a little over one hundred miles north of Disney—attracts an assortment of visitors, from locals to international tourists. A little over a decade ago, I volunteered at the Florida Agricultural Museum, about seventy miles east of Paynes Prairie, where I had the opportunity to work with and ride domesticated Florida Cracker Horses. These horses are typically known for their short and narrow conformation compared to bulky quarter horses. Enamored by their fun riding nature, I sought out their history.

*Image 1. A photograph of horses within archival folder labeled “Paynes Prairie.”****[12]***

What emerged was a storied past, familiar to locals but largely unfamiliar to academic historians. As presented by local residents, the history of the Cracker Horse begins when Spanish conquistadors came and left behind their horses. Then the horses became feral, only to be captured by Indigenous peoples and European settlers of Florida. The horse of many names (Seminole pony, Cracker pony, woods-horse) continued to be domesticated and widely utilized on farms until the 1920s and 1930s when scrub cattle and larger cattle from out West became infected by ticks and screwworms, leading to changes in Florida cattle work.[1] The seemingly smaller Florida Cracker Horses were being replaced by larger horse breeds to work larger cattle and encourage cattle into the chemical dips. As time passed, many of the working Florida Cracker Horses were interbred or replaced with other types of horses like quarter horses.[2] Elder cattleman Joseph “Wormy” Wasserman, for instance, recalled riding a Cracker-quarter horse cross as a youth and has continued to ride Cracker and Cracker crosses throughout his life working cattle.[3] By the 1970s only a few Cracker Horses remained. However, by the 1980s a few Florida families like the Ayers, Bronsons, Partins, Whaley, and Boals came together to save the breed, thus the animal survives today![4] Sadly, I was unequipped to handle the project of verifying the narrative and it needed to be shelved. That was until I began teaching a Florida history course at Florida Gulf Coast University and felt compelled to return to the Florida Cracker Horse. In full disclosure and with many thanks, my research for the project has been funded by the Agricultural History Society Research Grant.

Image 2. A photograph of horses within archival folder labeled “Paynes Prairie.” The horse on the far left clearly exhibits characteristics of the breed’s confirmation like height, narrow bodied, and solid colorization.[13]

One of the earliest mentions of the Florida Cracker Horse is found in The Travels of William Bartram, first published in 1791, based on his journey that started in 1773. Travels follows the naturalist’s excursion into the Florida scrub, and his observations of people, plants, and animals along the trek. Bartram frequently mentions the “Siminole horse” which is another name often associated with the Florida Cracker Horse. He described them as “the most beautiful and sprightly species of that noble creature, perhaps any where to be seen; but are of a small breed, and as delicately formed as the American roe-buck…The Siminole horses are said to descend originally from the Andalusian breed, brought here by the Spaniards when they first established the colony of East Florida.”[5]

*Images 3A and 3B. Author attempting to find horses at Bolen’s Bluff within the preserve.*

Bartram’s inclusion of the “Siminole horse” within his Travels linking the animals to the old Spanish stock, serves as early evidence of the Florida Cracker Horse, who today are also referred to as the Seminole Pony. His description of the “Siminole horse” as being small, lively, and a bit capricious reflects the characteristics of the modern Florida Cracker Horse.[6] The similarities in Bartram’s description of “Siminole horses” to the Florida Cracker Horses are too close to deny outright.

With their origins tentatively confirmed, I worked on dissecting their survival story, which led me to Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park and the quaint town of Micanopy, just south of Gainesville. The park had been one of the largest cattle ranches in La Florida. Bartram explored the area in the 18th century. More recently, it has become a popular destination for locals and tourists alike.[7] Reports of loose horses were ongoing in the park prior to the official release of the Florida Cracker Horses.[8] The horses released intentionally in 1986 were from the private herd of John Ayers, a legislator and horseman, who had selectively and intentionally bred the Florida Cracker Horses for preservation, selling each horse for about $200.[9] According to retired park manager Jack Gillen, who was there at the time of horse acquisition, six horses were initially released. Although some time had passed, he was able to recall that the stallion was named Ecorakko, the Seminole word for a large deer (or horse), and one of the mares was named Carla, after the president of Friends of Paynes Prairie.[10] Unfortunately, he could not remember the names of the remaining four initial mares that were released.

My first stop in Micanopy was the Micanopy Historical Society Archives for an appointment with Erik Murray, the archivist. Although the results did not yield a treasure trove, we uncovered a set of photographs labeled “Horses + Cows on Paynes Prairie c1980s.”[11] Within it were a few pictures of horses, (see Image 1 and Image 2 for examples) with characteristics matching Florida Cracker Horses, including their small stature, solid colors, and having narrow bodies. Perhaps these were from the original herd; the timing certainly correlates.

Afterwards it was a short drive to the prairie for a few hours of unsuccessful exploration before dark (see Image 3). As I discovered later when examining photographs, there was inconclusive photo evidence of a possible horse sighting within Image 4 and Image 5 from my trip. To my chagrin, it seemed that only deer, squirrels, and remnants of a prescribed burn that had been conducted earlier in the day were found (see Image 6). Although I bemoaned the burn, as it would hamper my search, I had to remind myself that Florida Crackers (humans) fought for the burns to take place in the 1930s. As David Nelson notes, cattlemen, turpentiners, and farmers in the 1930s believed that burning allowed for fire prevention, killed undesirable pests like ticks, and provided better vegetation for cattle grazing.[14] As Nelson argues, cattlemen in particular burned pastureland as a way to generate new grass growth, however the burns in general were at odds with the commercialization of Florida’s environment as a tourist destination rather than a working agricultural landscape.[15] Burns left marks on the land, char on trees, smoke in the sky—not exactly the exotic paradise marketed to tourists. For roughly the next thirty years, arguments by women’s clubs, boosters, members of the forestry service, the CCC, and other experts of the time contradicted the benefits of burns done by Crackers.[16] As an unsuspecting tourist visiting the park, the ash floating in the air and the desolate looking landscape was a bit jarring, but apparently not too discouraging for the local fauna (namely deer) and droves of human visitors.

The Florida Cracker Horse, the state horse of Florida since 2008, has a sanctuary to live within a state park which is currently marketed as an exemplar of “Real Florida.” The marketing can be felt within the park’s curation of Florida’s environment. Although the trails were well kept and seemingly well used, at least during my visit, there were not obnoxious trail markers. Observation towers simultaneously provided the biggest attractions and artificial intrusion into viewing the prairie and the animals. The tagline of the parks (which applies to all Florida state parks) seems especially apt as Paynes Prairie attempted to re-introduce animals reflecting a curated vision of “Real Florida.”

Common Florida animals including deer and squirrels inhabit the park alongside bison and horses. At first glance the presence of bison is odd and abrupt, especially stumbling upon signage that might belong in Yellowstone (see Image 7). While the park attempts an image of “Real Florida” today, the bison conjure up associations of a frontier, which Florida certainly was in the 1800s. Newspapers reported that buffalo were killed in the vicinity of the park in 1716 with the last “native” bison being killed in 1821.[17] Ten bison were re-introduced to the area in 1975 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from a refuge in Oklahoma for about $100 each.[18] According to newspaper articles of the time, the bison were not unanimously accepted, in response to the negativity in 1985 park manager Jack Gillen was quoted saying, “These animals became extinct here because of hunting pressure, because of settlement of the land. They were just forced out.”[19] The bison were to return. Similar to the horses, the bison’s numbers have reportedly grown as they live out their lives within the park.

Inadvertently, my quest to find the Florida Cracker Horse has impacted my research on adventure tourism in Florida. The roaming bison and horses in Paynes Prairie evoke emotions of a romanticized frontier of the Old West. But southeastward, Florida was an exotic wild frontier in the 19th and early 20th century, one where adventure tourism led to hunting the dangerous beasts of untamed Florida.[20] But now, in place of guns and guides, droves of sunscreened huntsmen hunt for visual adventure in the region, armed with binoculars and cameras with telephoto lenses. They travel down marked paths and up observation towers, trying to shoot the elusive horses and bison with film instead of bullets.

When searching the different locations of possible recent sightings, all that I found were mere traces of hoofprints and manure ranging from one to countless days old. Perhaps though, this reflects the horses’ elusive presence in the archives and points to an ongoing task for animal historians. Animal history requires researchers to be interdisciplinary and widen their scope of source types and interpretations. Horses typically do not leave a traditional written record, but by tracking their hoofprints physically on the prairie, or metaphorically in oral and regional histories, their stories begin to emerge. Locating animals in history can be an arduous and inventive task, but in the end a rewarding adventure.

I would like to extend a warm thank you to archivist Erik Murray, the Agricultural History Society, and the kind fellow “hunters” who chatted and swapped sightings or lack thereof with me during my adventure.

[1] To medicate the cattle, they would be dipped bi-weekly in a white arsenic solution vat leading to more fencing across Florida. David Nelson notes that during the 1930s the cattle had to be regularly dipped and marked, if not then the cattle faced death, to the determent of the cattle’s owner: David Nelson, “Rejecting Paradise: Tourism, Conservation, and the Birth of the Modern Florida Cracker in the 1930s,” Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 96, No. 3(2017), 355-356.

[2] Quarter horses have their own storied past, one to be its own article. Like the Florida Cracker Horse, quarter horses are commonly traced to the east coast as descendants of Spanish horses. These early colonial horses were then interbred with thoroughbreds and a blending of bloodlines to produce ranch and racehorses.

[3] Joseph "Wormy" Wasserman, interview by author, Jan. 9, 2025.

[4] Gillen, interview by author, Feb. 13, 2025.

[5] First published in 1791. Mark Van Doren, Ed. The Travels of William Bartram, (Macy-Masius Publishers: 1928), 185.

[6]Ibid.

[7] Jay Clarke, “Bison and Antiques Enliven Quiet Micanopy” Toronto Star, Oct. 10, 1987.

[8] Lyle G. Van Bussum, “Sea Horses, Maybe?” The Tampa Tribune, Dec. 5, 1965.

[9] Associated Press, “Rare Cracker Ponies Join Bison on Paynes Prairie,” Orlando Sentinel, Jan. 18, 1986. https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/rare-cracker-ponies-join-bison-on-paynes-prairie/docview/276719881/se-2.

[10] Jack Gillen, interview by author, Feb. 13, 2025. Although further research contradicts the meaning of Ecorakko.

[11] Lewis B. Smyth, “Horses + Cows on Paynes Prairie c1980s,” Photo envelope 2005.053.011 within Folder Paynes Prairie 2005.053, Micanopy Historical Society Archives.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Nelson, “Rejecting Paradise,”344-347.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Crackers fought back citing Indigenous practices and the good health of the land where the burnings took place. Nelson would further correlate the folly of stopping the burns with the increase of ticks and the ill caused by them in Florida. Ibid.

[17] Jan Godown, “Yes, Florida Has a Land Where the Buffalo Roam,” Tallahassee Democrat, Jun. 9, 1985, 1G, 5G; Jeff Klinkenberg, “Prairie Tales,” St. Petersburg Times, Nov. 10, 1991. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/november-10-1991-page-79-283/docview/2053130958/se-2.

[18] “The Great Outdoors,” St. Petersburg Times, Jul. 2, 1978; Godown, “Yes, Florida Has a Land.”

[19] Jack Gillen quoted in Godown, “Yes, Florida Has a Land,” 5G.

[20] As Gary Garret implies, Florida was one of the last vestiges of the frontier in the U.S., soon to be conquered with dredges and pavement. Gary Garret, “Blasting through Paradise: The Construction and Consequences of the Tamiami Trail,” in Paradise Lost? The Environmental History of Florida, eds. Jack E. Davis and Raymond Arsenault (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), 262.

Lipsey, "Finding the Florida Cracker Horse"

Finding the Florida Cracker Horse

Hanna Lipsey

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