It’s sometimes easy to forget agriculture’s role in making Florida the state it is today.
But if you need any reminders and want to learn about Florida’s agriculture yesterday and today, visit the Florida Agricultural Museum in Palm Coast.
“Our museum celebrates the past, present and future of agriculture in Florida. Our historic buildings have been relocated to our facility from across the state,” writes Executive Director Kara Hoblick in her welcome greeting.
The center is also a venue for events like the Nov. 23 Island Festival, which celebrates Caribbean culture. This festival overlaps with the Florida Tiny House Festival, which takes place Nov. 23-24 and features privately owned tiny houses, vardos, yurts and specialty tiny homes.
But while these events offer visitors something different during the upcoming November weekend, the heart and soul of this outdoor museum is the story of Florida agriculture – and that should not be missed.
The museum was established in 1983 as the Florida Agricultural Legacy Learning Center, first set up in Tallahassee as part of the Agriculture and Consumer Services division. However, 15 years later, it moved to its current home in Flagler County. All museum buildings were moved from their original locations and renovated with state grant funds.
“We have over 460 acres of land at the museum,” said tour guide Jenn Moses, who takes visitors around in a tour tram powered by a tractor. “Fifty acres are cultivated or have original buildings, not reproductions. They come from Espanola, the Gainesville area, DeLeon Springs, and Tallahassee. They were moved here between 2008-2009, sometimes in pieces, or in one shot.”
The structures include a fully stocked general store from the 1800s, a dairy barn from the 1920s, five buildings from a citrus production center, and a cracker home built in 1880.
The Clark Family Homestead is the real thing and gives visitors insight into how a Florida cracker family might have lived.
“It is original. Nothing is a reproduction,” said Moses. “The family put the tin roof on in 1890. It was built out of yellow pine and other indigenous material. A member of the Clark family inhabited it until 1947. It has a wide overhanging porch roof that keeps the sun out and the shade in.”
But first, what is a cracker or a shotgun house? What sets it apart from any other kind of home? The way Moses explains it, if you were going to shoot a gun through the front door, the bullet would go back without hitting any windows. Hence, the shotgun moniker.
The cracker terminology comes from the way Florida cowboys used whips instead of lassos because there was too much vegetation in Florida.
“The cracking sound of whips created the cracker cowboy phrase,” Moses said. “Cracker cowboys need somewhere to live, so they had cracker houses.”
The home looks just like it might have in the past, with a living room and two bedrooms in the front and a breezeway leading to the kitchen area in the back. There’s a working well, a pie cabinet in the kitchen and a sugar cane grinder outside. Of course, there was no plumbing, so the family placed outhouses in the rear.
Because it was a working farm, the animals on the property were like those the Clark family might have had. “All the animals are considered indigenous to Florida. The Spaniards brought them in the 1500s,” Moses said.
The farm animals include clown-faced chickens, “cracker” cattle, smaller than the cattle in Texas and other farm states, and Florida piney-woods rooter hogs or wild boars, including one the staff fondly calls “Kevin Bacon.”
But there’s more to marvel at than the Clark Homestead. Another visitor favorite is the
Caldwell Dairy Barn was built in 1920. It belonged to Florida’s 29th governor, Milliard Caldwell, and moved from Tallahassee in four pieces with the establishment of the farm museum.
According to Moses, the dairy barn housed 72 cows, and farmhands could milk 36 of them anytime. Because the cows were free-range and the barn was open, they could come and go. Caldwell was the first to pasteurize milk and sell ice cream.
A highlight is the Traxler Commissary, stocked with some actual items of facsimiles of canned goods, lamps, furniture, tools, and other things needed for daily life. The store also served as a meeting place for local folks to share gossip and news or pass the time with a game of checkers.
William Traxler Jr., who built the commissary, initially set it up in Alachua County in a town that bore his name. Traxler is now a ghost town, but what was his commissary is now on-site at the museum.
According to Moses, Traxler got his start by investing an inheritance for his father in buying up 100 acres of land.
“He started with a tobacco farm and grew vegetables, then added a grist mill and a cotton gin. He was a good businessman and realized all these farmers had to go 25 miles north to get supplies. So, he set up a vegetable stand and sold supplies. This became the commissary,” Moss said.
But it wasn’t just money that motivated Traxler. He set his sights on a particular young woman he wanted to wed, but her mother wouldn’t have it until Traxler showed he could succeed economically. Suffice it to say that Traxler got the business and the girl.
Guided horseback riding is also available by reservation for those who want another experience. Trail riding is possible on the museum property, and visitors can extend their experience by taking a “horses only” bridge over Interstate 95 to an adjoining 3,000 acres of riding trails.
The museum is located at 7900 Old Kings Road North in Palm Coast and is open for public tours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday. For more information, call 386-446-7630 or visit https://www.floridaagmuseum.org.
