Great Florida Cattle Drive 2022 will Celebrate 500 Years of Cattle in Florida – December 4-10

To celebrate 500 years of cattle production in Florida, the Florida Cow Culture Preservation Committee has organized a trail drive for 500 people driving 1,000 across Old Florida, from December 4-10, 2022. Credit: The Florida Cow Culture Preservation Committee

Source: Florida Cow Culture Preservation Committee

The Great Florida Cattle Drive 2022 will be held December 4 – 10th, with 500 participants helping take 1,000 head of cattle through some of the last “Old Florida” style lands. To celebrate the previous drives and to salute the 500 years of Florida’s “cow culture,” we will once again be driving cattle, riding the trail, sleeping on the ground and living the life of our ancestors; even if only for a few days. The drive will end in Kenansville, Florida with a Grand Trail’s End Celebration, which will include musicians, singers, poets, storytellers, historians and re-enactors. Dancers, singers and historians from the Seminole Tribe of Florida will be there to make the event more colorful and to remind folks that the Seminoles were an important factor in this states development as a cattle power; and remain so to this day.

The re-enactment drives began in 1995 to honor Florida’s rich ranching heritage, a reminder of times when wild cattle were collected, driven to ports and exported to Cuba. The cattle were originally brought over by Spanish explorers and settlers to the newly discovered “La Florida” in 1521, and went wild, adapting to living in swamps and various ecosystems of Florida. The event is used to educate our citizens and folks around the globe, to the fact that the cattle business in the United States began right here in Florida. That’s right; the first American cowboys were Floridians.

The first Great Florida Cattle Drive re-enactment took place in 1995, as we celebrated Florida’s 150th birthday and the event was recognized as the largest sesquicentennial event in Florida, making the news worldwide. Drives were also held in 2006, 2016, and will be again this year, 2022. Originally it was scheduled for December 2021, to be 500 years since the arrival of cattle in Florida, but Coronavirus forced a delay of plans, so the drive was rescheduled for December 4-10, 2022.

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Come Learn the Lessons, Live the Life, and Experience the History!

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Registration is now Open for the December 2022 Cattle Drive! Registration is limited to 500 participants and will close on November 1, 2022.

The cost to participate in the entire drive and celebration experience is $650.00 per adult participant, and $500.00 per 12 and under child. All meals are included, as well as feed and hay for your horses from Sunday evening, December 4th, through Saturday morning, December 10th. Included also is entertainment each evening and the Trail’s End Celebration.

A $200 non-refundable deposit per participant is required to save your space, with the balance due by November 1st – the adult balance will be $450.00, child balance will be $300. If you wish to pay the full amount now (which we greatly appreciate as it helps us with organizational/logistics expenses we have to pay upfront), $200 of the amount is non-refundable, and the remainder may be refunded on a pro-rated basis up until November 1st, at the discretion of the Executive Committee. Because of this “no refunds” policy, we are offering Trip Insurance through a 3rd party company. You will see the option to purchase this as you go through the registration screens.

To register to take part in this historic event, go to the 2022 Great Florida Cattle Drive webpage. There you will find more details about the 2022 drive along with the registration link to reserve space for your family in this historic event. After reading all of the information provided, if you have questions, please contact greatfloridacattledrives@gmail.com via email.

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