Visitors to this old Florida homestead can walk back in time to 1930s farm life when Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings lived and worked in the tiny community of Cross Creek.

Her cracker-style home and farm, where she wrote her Pulitzer prize-winning novel The Yearling and other wonderful works of fiction, has been restored and is preserved as it was when she lived here.

The park is open every day and visitors may walk the grounds and peek in through the windows and doors of the farmhouse, but tours inside the farmhouse are not currently available. Be sure to pick up a color brochure of the farmhouse on your way in at the honor fee kiosk just outside the entrance gate.

Picnic facilities, a boat ramp to Orange Lake and a playground are located in the adjacent county park.

Before you come, you might enjoy picking up a copy of one of Marjorie Rawlings books and use her words to travel back to frontier Florida – and then come see us at the park and explore her farmyard, grove, seasonal garden and trails. Her book about her life here, Cross Creek, will take you directly back to life on this land and in this community.

Rawlings was honored as a First Floridian by then-Governor Charlie Crist in March 2009. The U.S. Postal Service released a commemorative stamp in 2008 honoring Rawlings and the literary arts.

In 2007, the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings house and farm yard was designated as a National Historic Landmark, our nation’s highest historic recognition.

We’ve mentioned our geocache in several places and included a warning about the sprinklers. This has both amused and sometimes confused our geo-seeking visitors. Yes, we have a hidden box in the farmyard area that is fun to find. Check out the Geo-seeking page before you come so you too can find our geocache. We are proud to have been visited and liked by many!

State Parks Tagged With: Hawthorne