MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS
HISTORIC STATE PARK

By  Mike Miller November 3, 2025

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park lies in Cross Creek, Florida. The site covers 8 acres on the author's former homestead situated between Ocala and Gainesville.

The park preserves the 1930s Cracker farmhouse and orange grove. A barn, tenant house, and pump house stand nearby.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Home

Trails cut through hammock forest and the grounds border Orange Lake. Staff wear period clothing and original furnishings fill the rooms.

Visitors can step into the world that inspired Rawlings's writing.

Farmyard Gate at Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings moved to Cross Creek in 1928, seeking quiet for her work. With husband Charles, she bought a 72-acre orange grove for $900.

The property held a 19th-century dogtrot house. She divorced Charles in 1933 and farmed alone during the Great Depression.

Rawlings raised chickens and shot game. She drank moonshine with the locals. There, she wrote The Yearling in 1938. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1939. It drew from a local boy's life with a fawn.

In 1941, she married Florida hotelier Norton Baskin and they split their time between Cross Creek and St. Augustine.

The book Cross Creek appeared in 1942 as her memoir. It described grove work, unruly pigs, and neighbors like Martha Mickens and Idella Parker.

Rawlings filled her personal notebooks with dialects and recipes from her Cross Creek neighbors. She hosted writers such as Zora Neale Hurston.

She died in 1953 at age 57. Baskin donated the site to the University of Florida, and the state acquired it in 1970. It became a National Historic Landmark in 2007.

The park address is 18700 South County Road 325, Cross Creek, FL 32640. Follow U.S. 301 to State Road 325 south.

The grounds are open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. House tours are conducted Thursday through Sunday at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Book ahead by phone at 352-466-3672. Parking is in the lot off the entrance road. You can walk the farmyard past chickens and sunflowers.

Hike the 0.5-mile nature trail and spot otters or herons near the lake. Wear shoes that are good on dirt paths.

• Rawlings kept a hidden still for corn whiskey. 

• The dogtrot house cooled air through its open hall. 

• She once tracked a runaway sow for days. 

• Idella Parker, her cook, sued over her Cross Creek portrayal. 

• The farm held a pet bear cub briefly. 

• Baskin built a grove fence from shipwreck wood. 

• Rawlings taught creative writing at the University of Florida.

MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS
HISTORIC STATE PARK WEBSITE

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