This was our fourth stay at this park, and I was determined I wasn’t going to write about history at this one. It’s not one of Florida’s older parks, and the only historical sites I remembered were the remains of the homestead of a cattle driver from the late 1800s. There are brick chimenys from old houses all over the country, so I didn’t think that was worth writing about. When we were camping at Paynes Prairie Preserve, I was planning to forget about human history and enjoy the animals. We had binoculars to spot birds and this year I hoped I might even see the wild horses and bison.
But because of a malfunction that required two trips to the dealership in Gainsville for repairs, we ended up driving to some hiking trails that are not accessible from the section of the park where we camp. And then the history of the area demanded my attention. The history explains why the wild horses were there grazing on the prairie at sunset.
Hernando de Soto Brought Horses and Cattle to Join the Bison
While many of us associate bison with the western plains, these massive animals once roamed over much more of North America, including Florida. By the late 1700s, they had been hunted to extinction in the state, but that didn’t leave the region without big mammals. More than 250 years earlier, in 1539, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his team landed in the Tampa Bay area with a fleet of nine ships loaded with animals for his crew to use on their quest for gold. Although he had been ordered to treat the natives well, De Soto, did just the opposite, and soon found his team engaged in constant warfare as they trekked around the peninsula on a path that took them directly through the area that is now Paynes Prairie. As the expedition fell apart (without gold), many of the animals were left to fend for themselves. This included horses, Andalusian cattle, and pigs that thrived in the sub-tropical atmosphere and turned feral.
Chief Ahaya the Cowkeeper
The Seminole tribes and Spanish settlers that arrived the following century eventually domesticated the horses and cattle. During the 1600s, the site of Paynes Prairie was part of the massive La Chua ranch that supplied beef to St. Augustine and Havana along with most other Spanish settlements in the region.
By the mid-1700s, the prairie area was controlled by Seminole Chief Ahaya, known as the “Cowkeeper.” But it become known by the name of his son, “King Payne.”
The Prairie Turned into a Lake
A century later, the prairie turned into a lake when sediment clogged the limestone sinkhole. It changed the landscape so drastically that a steamboat service was established to transport lumber, cotton, citrus crops and passengers across space that had been dry land for centuries. Then, in 1891 just as suddenly as it started, the steamboat traffic was over. For reasons no one has yet discerned, the sinkhole drained and the lake disappeared in two weeks.
The Camp family came to the region to try to establish hydroelectric power in the sinkhole. When the water disappeared, they turned to the area’s earlier business–cattle ranching. Their ranch continued to operate until the 1970s when the state of Florida purchased the land for the park.
English Colonists Were the First Florida Tourists
These days, people come to Florida from all over the world to hang out on the beach or stand in line for roller coasters. A hundred years ago, tourists were taking the train down to Florida from to escape the winter weather in the northeast. But one of the first tourists to visit the peninsula didn’t come for the weather or the attractions. He came to see the animals.
William Bartram is celebrated today as a successful naturalist. When he came to Florida in 1774, however, he was considered a failure. He collected bird specimens starting in his teens and was recognized for the quality of his drawings of botanical and ornithological species. But these pursuits would not pay the bills, so he set up business as a merchant in Philadelphia and failed quickly. His father gave him resources to set up a plantation growing rice and indigo in Florida, but he had little interest in trying to make the venture successful, so it quickly failed as well.
As a break from a series of commercial failures, he embarked on a four-year voyage through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, taking copious notes along the way. When he returned to Philadelphia in 1777, he had become an expert in natural history and Native American cultures, and he took a role in the managing his father’s botanical garden. Years later, he published a journal of his travels, and it was the details in that journal that cemented his reputation for posterity.
He liked Paynes Prairie and gave it the equivalent of a five star review. But most other visitors found the climate difficult to manage until the advent of air conditioning.
History on the Hoof
De Soto trekked through in 1539. Seminoles ran ranches that garnered the praise of English tourists in the 1770s. Steamboat traffic covered the prairie grasses in the 1880s It’s all gone now, and without signs, I never would have learned about any of this human history.
But some of the history of the area is walking around not attached to a board. The descendants of the horses and cattle left by De Soto still roam in the park, enticing tourists who try to catch a glimpse from a viewing platform. Bison were reintroduced to the area when the park was formed in the mid-1970s, and they are the attraction people are most excited about.
I still have yet to see them. But we have reservations for next year—and I’ll have my binoculars ready.
if you enjoy stories about people trekking through unknown terrain and facing exotic animals, you might enjoy my book Toto’s Tale