This is the third in a series of stories about the lives of a pioneering cattle family and the vast ranch they established.

THE SERIES TO DATE

The Cow Creek Chronicles is the true-life story of a pioneering Florida family and the vast ranch they established. In the first two episodes, Keightley Raulerson arrives in Fort Pierce in 1896 and later wins political office, helping form the early governments of Fort Pierce and St. Lucie County. 

His younger brother, Frank, arrives in 1907 with wife, Annie Louise, and their young son, Alfred. Keightley dies in 1913, leaving Frank to oversee a cattle business, slaughterhouse and grocery store. 

Frank grows the businesses and wins election to the county commission. He builds the landmark Raulerson Building in downtown and a new home on Orange Avenue in the 1920s boom era. 

In the 1930s, he wins office to the Florida Senate. He also begins making large purchases, creating a 23,000-acre ranch along the St. Lucie-Okeechobee county line called Cow Creek. Frank’s son, Alfred, is the presumed heir to all that Frank accumulates, but when Alfred dies in a boating accident in 1938, the only heir is Alfred’s 8-year-old daughter, Jo Ann. Frank and Annie Louise persuade Jo Ann’s mother to let them raise the young girl, arguing that they have better means to do so. 

She relents. Jo Ann grows up a child of privilege but is also conflicted. She is both influenced by her grandmother’s Victorian-era values and her grandfather’s desire to make her a cattlewoman capable of running Cow Creek and his other land holdings.

The death of Jo Ann’s father and separation from her mother steels Jo Ann’s emotions, allowing her to endure almost anything. Annie Louise dies in 1951 and Frank sells off most of his real estate holdings, except Cow Creek, before his death in 1954, putting his assets in a trust that becomes available to Jo Ann after her 30th birthday and beyond the 1960s.