Cracker farmhouse

In its simplest form, a Cracker house was a wooden shelter built by the early Florida and Georgia settlers. Lured to Florida by cheap and plentiful land, pioneers to the Deep South found an inhospitable land of searing heat, merciless biting insects and semi-tropical rains. These pioneers arrived with few provisions and needed to erect shelter quickly and cheaply. The brush provided abundant supplies of cedar and cypress. Rocks or bricks made of oyster shell and lime served as pilings to keep the shelters off the ground. A wide shade porch wasn't just an embellishment. In pre-air-conditioned Florida, the porches provided relief from the relentless sun. The homes themselves are of a vernacular style of architecture that allowed the breeze to permeate throughout pre air conditioned Florida houses. These early Florida settlers were known as 'Crackers' and the name is thought to come from the sound of whips used to drive cattle and oxen. Florida cattlemen cracked whips to flush their stock out of the palmetto scrub while settlers used whips to spur on oxen that pulled their carts and wagons.