COVER STORY
10
RIDE
FOR HISTORY
The annual Cracker Trail Ride that ends in
Fort Pierce celebrates Florida’s cattle roots
BY JANIE GOULD
PHOTOS BY CARLTON WARD JR.
The Florida Cracker Trail re-enactment, an annual
rite of winter for Fort Pierce, will get under way
Feb. 20, when horseback riders saddle up near
Bradenton. Six days and 120 miles later, it will
culminate on the east coast, near the historically
significant P.P. Cobb building.
The 19th century cattle drives showcased by the re-enactment
might not have happened without Peter P. Cobb’s
General Merchandise Store, which opened as a trading post
in 1882 and later advertised that it sold “Everything to Eat,
Wear and Use.”
Frontier cowboys who drove scrub cattle across the state
needed provisions for the journey but had no money to pay
for them. Cobb let them fill their saddlebags with his merchandise
and pay him after they had sold their herds. “It was
all done with a handshake,” said Greg Fredrick, a Cracker
Trail rider.
The re-enactment, sponsored by the Florida Cracker
Trail Association, is really of the return trip back to Fort
Pierce after the cattle were safely on their way to Havana.
The first ride was in 1988, a year after the state Legislature
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The Cracker Trail starting from Bradenton and ending in Fort Pierce is an annual event that marks the historic cattle roundup by Florida’s early settlers.