Sarasota journalist’s upcoming book is about ‘what Florida used to be like and could still be like, if we work hard enough to preserve it.’
Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: Feb. 7, 2025
Host: Florida ranks ninth in the nation when it comes to the number of beef cows, and it’s number 18 in total cattle. But that number is declining quickly as suburban sprawl is gobbling up pasture land at speeds rarely seen before, particularly in coastal counties such as Sarasota and Manatee. That’s quite the decline from the post Civil War era, when Florida was the nation’s number one cattle producer. We talked to Isaac Eger, a Sarasota journalist who participated in the 2022 Florida Cattle Drive and is about to publish a book about that annual event.
Johannes Werner: On Sunday, Feb. 16, at 1 pm, Triangle Ranch in east Sarasota County will host a signing event for a book about the Great Florida Cattle Drive with author Isaac Eger, who grew up a city slicker in Sarasota and had never been on a horse before.
Isaac Eger during the 2022 cattle drive.
Isaac Eger: I’ve written about not my experience so much, but of the people, the history, the horses, the cattle, the culture. It’s just kind-of a way for people to see what Florida used to be like and could still be like if we work hard enough to preserve it.
JW: He slipped into a saddle in late 2022 kind of by default. Elizabeth Moore, the wealthy preservationist who owns the cattle ranch in Old Miakka, had to give up her participation in the seven-day, seven-night ride of 80 miles across a good chunk of the peninsula. Eger was excited to pick up her ticket.
IE: I had been dreaming about horses for a while. I kept having these recurring dreams about being on a horse. I was working on a story about Elizabeth Moore and her Triangle Ranch, where the book event will be held, and I wrote a profile on her for Sarasota Magazine about her preservation efforts. Elizabeth and I became friends, and she told me about this cattle drive that she was going to go on, and I voiced a lot of interest. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, she had to duck out—and she had bought a ticket to go—because of, I think, a hip or a knee issue, so she gave me her ticket.
I said I would go. I hadn’t been on a horse before, but the folks at the cattle association who ran the Great Florida Cattle Drive were immensely helpful—some of the nicest, friendliest folk—who tease you nonstop, but out of love—welcomed me in. They gave me—I had to rent a horse, of course—but they just put me on a horse and then sent me off.
JW: The 2022 cattle drive included not only horses, covered wagons and 350 riders, but—as the name suggests—some 500 heads of cattle. The tradition began in 2017, as a re-enactment of an 1850s cattle drive.
IE: The history of cattle in Florida is 500 years old. People forget we are the original cowboys, so you can wear a cowboy hat in Florida and not feel like an impostor necessarily. The Spanish first brought the cows over, and there’s a real possibility that there’s still some genetic lineage from those original Andalusian cows that Juan Ponce de Leon brought over in 1521, and that’s what became the Cracker cows, as we know them today.
After a period of time, when the cows wilded themselves, people from the north and Georgia and Tennessee—poor white folk—started heading down into Florida to rustle up the cows. Those were the cow hunters, they called them, not cowboys. That’s where the term “Cracker” comes from. They would crack their whips and move the cows out of the saw palm.
JW: Given private property, fences, gates, road crossings and the like—that makes these annual events organized by the Florida Cattlemen’s Association a logistically challenging and slow undertaking.
IE: Because we’ve lost so much land, we can’t possibly do the original cattle drives, so they had to coordinate with a handful of private ranchers to let them use their land for us to push 500 heads of cattle through. There were several different ranches we went through, the largest of which was Deseret Ranch, the Mormon ranch. We started at this place called Lake X, which is another private property. The amount of coordination it required was impressive. What they did was a true feat, I think, because they were feeding not just the cows but the horses and us as well. We could camp every night. There were about 350 of us on horseback. I described it in my original article as like a child’s crayon drawing—swirls, loops everywhere. We weren’t going in a straight line. We were kind-of ceremonially marching through what was left of the wilds of Florida.
JW: It’s also hard on humans, cows and horses.
IE: We had peculiarly hot weather, and a few people passed out. Some horses didn’t make it, actually. It was hot. It was a lot of people to take care of. I didn’t realize just how much horses sweat until I was on one.
You would have periods of time where the cows would—you would just be sitting for a while sometimes. I’m sure the original cowboys moved a bit more efficiently than we did, but they also weren’t carrying 350 other horse riders and total novice fools like myself on board.
JW: Eger’s main takeaway: The Florida landscape must be protected.
IE: There were long chunks of time where you wouldn’t see civilization. It’s the last bit of Florida—ancient Florida. It felt old. The land felt old. There were parts where there were power lines and you had to cross roads, but there were just these huge prairies with oak hammocks, and it was incredible. Growing up in Florida, born and raised here, I had never seen the state like this, and it would be a real tragedy if something like this ceased to exist, which is a serious possibility.
I think that I had been wrong growing up—having the wrong idea about agricultural folk and cattle folk—that they were somehow political adversaries in some way or another. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I mean, I grew up vegan and all that stuff, so cattle—I was like, “Oh, those poor cows,” but—I now eat meat—but also I recognized the cattle’s place in the Florida ecosystem, but also in a means of preserving it, and I don’t think there are any better preservationists in the state of Florida than ranchers. They have massive amounts of land that have remained largely untouched. It is sad when, an old rancher family, the patriarch or matriarch, they die, and then it gets split up amongst the kids, and developers offer them an amount of money they can’t refuse, almost. The state of Florida could—and does occasionally—offer to buy up this land.
JW: The coffee table book features photography by fellow Sarasotan Elam Stolzfus, who was also on the ride. The book signing at Triangle Ranch is by-invitation-only.
If you would like to join the event at Triangle Ranch Feb. 16 at 1 pm, send an email to isaaceger@gmail.com. You can find the book here.
Reporting for WSLR News, Johannes Werner.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.