The Great Florida Cattle Drive 2022 will be held December 4–10, with 500 participants helping take 1,000 head of cattle through some of the last “Old Florida” style lands.
According to a story from the University of Florida/IFAS, to celebrate the previous drives and to salute over 500 years of Florida’s “cow culture,” this event will consist of driving cattle, riding the trail, sleeping on the ground and living the life of our ancestors for a few days.
The starting gathering point is in St. Cloud, Florida with the drive ending near 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 the 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 folks around the globe to the fact that the cattle business in the U.S. began in Florida.
Originally this drive was scheduled for December last year to celebrate 500 years since the arrival of cattle in Florida. But, Coronavirus forced a delay of plans, so the drive was rescheduled for this year.