Guide to Florida Pioneer Sites: Exploring the Cracker Heritage

This unusual richly illustrated guidebook details Floridas historic pioneer and cracker villages describing the homes work-ways and folk-ways of the states early settlers through preserved and tangible objects and structures. Across the state dedicated local historians and community groups have carefully preserved and moved 19th- and early 20th-century structures including both homes and workplaces to specially created villages in order to display the lives of Florida pioneers. The tools houses farms gardens barns sugar and turpentine mills churches and schools that are gathered into twenty separate sites are described here for the first time in a single volume. Through the rich collections of household utensils mills and structures the visitor can appreciate the details of the everyday life work hardships and recreation of past generations of Floridians. The book is an indispensable handbook and guide for the casual or dedicated historic tourist as well as for parents and teachers seeking to expose young people to the vanishing lifestyles of Floridas pioneers. Contact information hours special events and detailed descriptions of each structure at the sites provide the casual or dedicated visitor with both practical facts for arranging trips and the specific family histories of the pioneers who built and lived in the homes.