Get Our Newsletter

Historic Things to Do in Cross Creek, FL

Last Updated on February 29, 2024

Are you looking for historical things to do in Cross Creek? 

If you want to feel like you’ve been transported back to the 1930s, all you have to do is visit the tiny community of Cross Creek, Florida.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings House Vintage Postcard

Cross Creek is home to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic Park, a state park devoted entirely to the life, times, and work of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

The town of Cross Creek is southeast of Gainesville in Alachua County on a narrow strip of land separating Orange and Lochloosa Lakes.

Photo of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings with a typewriter
Author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, photo courtesy Florida Memory Project

You may not have heard of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings if you’re new to FloridaHowever, anyone raised here surely has not only heard of her but may have visited Cross Creek on a field trip growing up.

The Yearling book illustration
Source: Friends of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Farm, Inc.

Her novel, The Yearling, has been considered required classroom reading for many decades. The Pulitzer-prize winning story is about Jody Baxter.

He’s a 12-year-old boy growing up in Central Florida during the 19th century, with his pet fawn, Flag. 

Vintage Cross Creek
Source: Friends of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Farm, Inc.

Both experience the trials and tribulations of backwoods living in rural Florida. They are inseparable, and as they grow into adolescence, they face challenging life lessons.

Photo of The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Yearling

We highly recommend picking the book up at your local library or purchasing it online. It’s the type of book you’ll want to read more than once.

The endearing tale was also adapted into a 1946 movie starring Gregory Peck as Jody’s father, and Jane Wyman as Jody’s mother.

Considered a classic, the film captures glimpses of “old Florida” also depicting the state’s early frontier. Like reading the book, the Oscar-winning film is a timeless classic you will always treasure.

Visiting Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park

Photo of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings House
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s homestead

Majorie Kinnan Rawlings’s Florida Cracker-style home and farm in Cross Creek is where she lived. It’s also where she wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Yearling.

It is now part of the Florida State Park system and is open to the public. The cost is $3.00 per vehicle. There is no fee for guided tours, however, donations are gratefully accepted.

Typical of Florida cracker architecture, the home has a raised floor, high ceilings, and many windows and doors that are ideal for cross ventilation and warm weather living.

The well-preserved home is furnished with simple period furniture and reminders of times past, including rattlesnake skins, tacked to the walls.

Photo of the Rawlings Home
Entrance, Rawlings’s homestead

Rawlings moved to the farm in 1928. She wrote many of her novels here, including Cross Creek, an autobiographical account of her life in the little town.

The book chronicles her neighbors, the townspeople, her efforts at farming a citrus grove, and also live in the Florida wilderness.

Rawlings often entertained in her home. Famous guests who visited her while passing through Florida included Robert Frost, Margaret Mitchell, Thornton Wilder, N.C. Wyeth and Gregory Peck.

The Homestead

Photo of a path to the Rawlings House
Gate entrance, Rawlings’s homestead

When visiting you will enter the homestead through an old wire gate and walk along a sandy pathway through a small orange grove. 

If you visit while the citrus is blooming, you’ll enjoy the sweet smell of orange, grapefruit, and tangerine blossoms as you walk onto the property.

You’ll pass by the barn, once a center of activity, where oranges were placed in crates to be later transported by wagon to packinghouses.

It was also home to Dora, Rawlings’s cow, that was said to create the “richest cream” despite having a temperamental disposition.

Photo of a covered porch
Screened-in front porch with sleeping couch

Rawlings’s 1940 yellow Oldsmobile is parked next to the home’s screened-in front porch, doubling as a sleeping veranda.

On the porch overlooking the yard, a cypress table rests on a Sabal Palm base surrounded by chairs made of deer hides.

Photo of a table with a typewriter on it
The table where Rawlings wrote The Yearling

An old typewriter also sits on the table where Rawlings wrote The Yearling. It’s easy to imagine the author sitting on the porch crafting her novels and detailing her rural Florida life so vividly shared in her stories.

Photo of a wooden table from below
Florida Sabal Palm tree trunk sits at the base of the table

Old weathered pine floors extend throughout the house, while her living room provides a relaxing space with a fireplace, comfy seating, and bookshelves – stocked with her books.

Photo of a Dining Room
Rawlings’s dining room 

However, the nearby dining room was where she loved to entertain and lavish her guests with sumptuous homemade meals cooked on her woodburning stove.

Effective Aug. 7, 2023: House tours at Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park are suspended until Oct. 1, 2023, while the property undergoes routine upkeep and maintenance.

Cooking and The Kitchen

Cross Creek Cookery

Sample dishes served on her elegant Wedgewood china included Orange Lake Frog Legs, Swamp Cabbage cooked with white Bacon, Grapefruit and Kumquat Salad, Florida Backwoods Biscuits, Beets in Orange Sauce, and also Watermelon Cake.

Prompted by friends, Rawlings authored a cookbook in 1942 called Cross Creek Cookery.

Two bedrooms are furnished to illustrate the times. One has a homemade bed – the oldest piece in the house – but adding the bathroom created excitement.

The new bath enabled Rawlings to move from outdoor to indoor plumbing. She later celebrated with a party, inviting the locals to the bash.

Photo of a vintage kitchen
Rawlings’s authentic kitchen

Cooking enthusiasts will appreciate Rawlings’s kitchen, decorated with yellow gingham curtains overlooking the outside vegetable garden.

It includes an authentic stove, icebox, pantry, and spice cans.

Photo of a tenant house
Tenant house, Rawlings’s homestead

Don’t miss the Tenant House, living quarters for her laborers. This house provides a further glimpse into Florida’s frontier life.

Photo of a woman near a pantry
Volunteer-led tours provide insight into Rawlings’s life

A Park volunteer guide creates an inviting tour and provides insight into the author’s life. The homestead is open daily. Visitors may tour the house with a ranger dressed in a period costume.

The Yearling Restaurant Sign
Source: The Yearling Restaurant

Nearby is the acclaimed Yearling Restaurant, specializing in Florida Cracker cuisine.

The Yearling Restaurant Shrimp Platter

It’s well worth a stop since it’s one of Florida’s true originals. They offer shrimp, gator tail, mullet, catfish, venison, and also cooter (soft-shelled turtle).

The Yearling Sour Orange Cake

Don’t miss the Sour Orange Pie. The restaurant is open Thursday – Sunday, at noon.

The Yearling Cottages

Photo of Herlong Mansion
Charming Micanopy, a short ride from Cross Creek

There are plenty of choices for accommodations if you also want to stay over. There’s the college town of Gainesville to the north or also the horse country of Ocala to the south.

Historic Micanopy sign

But to soak in some authentic Florida pioneer spirit, consider staying in the nearby community of Micanopy.

Photo of Micanopy mixed use old house

Once an Indian Trading Post, this tiny, but charming village of historic homes and moss-draped oaks is known as “the town that time forgot” for good reason.

Historic Micanopy
Photo credit: Michael Warren

It’s full of archaeological sites and a charming downtown with antique shops and quaint restaurants; it’s perfect for exploring and overnighting in one of the bed and breakfast inns.

Looking for more?