Out in Old Miakka, about 20 miles east of downtown Sarasota, lies a slice of true Florida history. The Crowley Museum and Nature center is a 191-acre farmstead, encompassing a range of rare Florida habitats, pioneer buildings and a herd of historical cattle and farm animals. The nonprofit was founded by William Jasper Crowley and Edina Truchot in 1974—Crowley was the grandson of John Crowley, an Irish immigrant who came to the area in the 1880s. On a homestead in Manatee County, John Crowley and his family became emblematic of the Florida “cracker” lifestyle.
Named after the sound of their cattle whip “cracking” in mid-air, the Florida cracker or cowmen, made their living driving herds of smaller, thinner cattle, descendants of the Spanish Conquistadors Andalusian cattle, through the plains and swamps of Florida. At the Crowley Museum, that heritage is honored through a pioneer museum, a relocated pioneer house and a herd of those same cracker cattle. Visitors to the estate are welcomed to take a tour through the pioneer museum, participate in folk school classes teaching methods of the cracker lifestyle still applicable to today or walk the grounds.
“What we do is essentially show people how hard life was to carve out in this area, not only for the pioneers, but for the native people who lived here,” says Dixie Resnick, president and CEO of the Crowley. “We give people a hands-on, immersive education in natural and cultural history. They can walk through the standalone historic buildings we have or through our half-mile long boardwalk, so that they can literally get into history and witness it as if they were seeing it through the eyes of those who came here first.”…