“I do not understand how anyone can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to.”                          Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Cross Creek

Two hours away from the hustle and bustle of Orlando city life, lays that “small place of enchantment.”  The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park sits between Orange Lake and Lochloosa Lake in Hawthorne, Florida about 19 miles southeast of Gainesville.  Nestled along Cross Creek, it was the homestead of Rawlings, the Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Yearling and author of many other books depicting cracker life.

A small county road leads into the park.  The unpaved parking lot sits off to the side, where you are directed to place your $3.00 park admission into the provided envelope and insert into a small wooden box.  From there, you are free to wander the grounds of the Rawlings homestead, a 72-acre home site featuring nature trails, citrus trees, a barn, garden, tenant house and the main farmhouse.  Not all of the buildings are the originals, but rather true-to-life replicas.

On the morning of our visit, we were the first ones to arrive and the only ones on the first guided tour of the morning.  A gray bearded park ranger, dressed in denim overalls, a plaid shirt and hat provided a very in-depth history of the grounds.  We began at the barn for an introduction to the history of the park before moving to the house itself.  Stepping inside the old cracker house was like stepping back in time.  Through the arrangement of the furnishings and the tales of the old homestead, it was easy to envision Rawlings living at Cross Creek.  A typewriter, pack of cigarettes, and other personal items sat on a handmade table on the screened-in front porch – a favorite place for Rawlings to sit and work.  If you let your mind wander, you can almost hear the clackety-clack of the old typewriter as she worked on her stories….

“Who owns Cross Creek? The red-birds, I think, more than I, for they will have their nests even in the face of delinquent mortgages.. It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed, but not bought.  It may be used, but not owned.  It gives itself in response to love and tending, offers its sesonal flowering and fruiting.  But we are tenants and not possessors, lovers, and not masters.  Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time…”

 ~from Cross Creek

The guided tour through the house lasted about an hour.  With each new room came new insight into the life of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. If you have read any of her books, it is easy to connect to many of the sights of the homestead. If you haven’t, or if it’s been awhile since you have, pick up The Yearling or Cross Creek, read them, then head on over to the park. Some of the scenes in those books come alive inside the walls of this old house.

There are too many stories to tell about the house and the life of its famous occupant.  It is a piece of history you need to experience for yourself.  There is a $3.00 per person charge at the end, but if you’re a Florida history buff or an avid reader, it’s worth it.

The park is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. October through July (closed August and September).  The house tours are offered Thursday through Sunday.

Find out more at: https://www.floridastateparks.org/park/Marjorie-Kinnan-Rawlings