Cracker Country
Such merchandise includes stick candy, period toys and games, and home décor items.
In 1911, a railroad was built through Hardee County, making Ona a major posting, shipping, and receiving point for central and western Florida.
Today, visitors to Cracker Country can wander through the Terry Store, looking at the collection of period items from the early 1900s, and recreated items from that era, and can talk to the living history re-enactors, who act as shop clerks, about the history of the store and of that time period.
The house was topped by rot-resistant cedar shingles and originally included a separate kitchen building that is not currently in Cracker Country.
The Smiths were farmers, and once a year would have gathered their hogs from the woods surrounding their house, to drive them to Tampa to sell.
However, the downstairs rooms are visible to visitors, and are fully furnished with belongings that would have been standard in homes of that period.
Albert and Martha's eighth son, Doyle E. Carlton, grew up to become Florida's 25th governor, from 1929 to 1933.
[7] One of the smaller historical edifices available for viewing and interaction with at Cracker Country, this smoke house is an original structure, built in Sumter County in the early 1900s and donated to Cracker Country in 1979 by the Southwest Florida Management District.
Before the age of refrigerators, the smoke house would have helped pioneers to keep their meats fresh and edible for longer periods of time.
[10] The old school house that can be seen today at Cracker Country was originally built from local heartpine in 1912 in the historical town of Castalia in DeSoto County.
Beginning in 1893, children aged seven to sixteen were required to attend school for at least six months out of the year; children from farm families could not attend school during plowing in the spring and harvesting in the fall, as they were needed to work the farm.
The addition of these animatronics in the school house during the week of the Florida State Fair began in 1989.
The organ is made of solid oak, with no veneers, and was donated to Cracker Country by Wayne Warren.
Rather, they are actual tombstones from an abandoned cemetery near Okahumpka and were moved to Cracker Country for better preservation in 1986.
[13] The Okahumpka Train Depot was originally built in 1898, in Lake County, to serve a section of the Henry B.
The freight room, unlike the rest of the depot, does not recreate an accurate freight room from the early 1900s, but instead includes a 500 square foot model train display, that took over 3,000 hours of labor, built by Robert Nelson and Jim Hunter.
The railroad company decided to retire the caboose in 1970, and it was then bought by Dr. James West, a physician, and the mayor of Lakeland.
Dr. West used the caboose as an office, outfitting it with electricity before installing a commode, cabinets, and an examining table.
Today, the Murphy Kitchen is home to Cracker Country's 1900s antique printing press.
During the Florida State Fair, visitors can watch the printing press in action, and take home a souvenir Cracker Country Chronicle newspaper, and a Cracker Country postcard, both printed right in front of them.
The Post Office building was originally built in the early 1900s in Cumpressco in the Green Swamp near Webster, Florida.
The Cane Mill and eighty gallon syrup kettle was built in the early 1900s, and was donated to Cracker Country in 1979 by Charlie Knight of Hillsborough County.
