PART TWO:
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 episode, Keightley Raulerson arrives in Fort Pierce in 1896 and later wins political office and helps 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.
Jo Ann marries a clothing salesman and lothario, Tommy Sloan, in 1952. She gives birth to their two daughters, Debra and Kathy, while he is in the Army.
On his return home, he begins to learn the ropes of running the ranch and, despite an awkward start, wins his way to becoming president of the St. Lucie County Cattlemen's Association in 1959.
A new generation, a new direction
After the death of Cow Creek founder Frank Raulerson, his granddaughter, Jo Ann, inherits the 23,000-acre ranch and turns over the reins to her husband, Tommy
BY GREGORY ENNS
By any stretch, the 1960s were a banner decade for the T.L. Sloan family and Cow Creek Ranch, one that would lead them to national prominence.
Jo Ann Sloan had been the inheritor of a multimillion dollar estate, including the 23,000-acre Cow Creek Ranch, from her grandfather, Frank Raulerson, who died in 1954 and had structured his estate putting everything in a trust until after Jo Ann reached her 30th birthday. Jo Ann had married Tommy, also known as T.L., in 1952, fulfilling her grandparents' wish of finding a mate who could help her run the ranch.
But service in the Army and the trust control prevent Tommy from becoming heavily involved in the ranch right away. Overseeing the trust are Raulerson's longtime bookkeeper O.G. Nanney, lawyer L.O. Stephens and Jo Ann's great aunt, Grace Lee.
While Tommy had no ranching experience when he marries Jo Ann in 1952 at the age of 20, he proves himself such a capable rancher that by 1958 fellow ranchers vote him president of the St. Lucie County Cattlemen's Association.
By 1960, Tommy is also gaining local press notices for his ranch work. In a column titled Hammock Country, The News-Tribune reports that "Sloan is responsible for the daily health of his stock, for the maintenance of 36 sections of pasture and for seeing that the herd increases through careful breeding.''
