Cross Creek is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. It is located on Cross Creek, a short stream connecting Orange and Lochloosa lakes.
Cross Creek is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. It is located on Cross Creek, a short stream connecting Orange and Lochloosa lakes.
Cross Creek is located at 29°29′11″N82°09′42″W / 29.4863°N 82.1616°W . [1] The community is situated in the extreme southeastern corner of Alachua County and is approximately 20 miles southeast of the county seat, Gainesville, and 24 miles north of Ocala in Marion County. It is bisected by a navigable waterway, Cross Creek, which connects the two large lakes of Orange and Lochloosa, thus the community is on a narrow isthmus between these two water bodies.
Cross Creek is well known as the home of the American author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. She wrote four of her books while actually living there, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Yearling , which was adapted as the 1946 film of the same name, and her memoir, Cross Creek, which was adapted as the 1983 film.
Cross Creek was settled in the 19th century. Rawlings house may have been built in the 1880s. [2] Rawlings reported that Cross Creek was home to just seven families, five white and two black, when she moved there in 1928. The roads were unpaved and there was no electrical power or ice available. Electrical power lines reached Cross Creek in 1948. The road through Cross Creek (Alachua County Road 325), was paved about the same time, after World War II. The road to Micanopy, the River Styx Road (Alachua County Road 346), was not paved until 1962. [3]
The population of Cross Creek began to grow during the 1950s and 1960s when local man Ben Wheeler dug canals and built a number of houses, many with waterfronts. A number of people moved into "The Creek" from other areas including the northern United States, thus the 'cracker' character of "The Creek" was permanently altered. By the late twentieth century the community would have been nearly unrecognizable to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.[ citation needed ]
The unique geographical environs and the presence of a few older houses (including Mrs. Rawlings' home, now both a Florida State Park and a National Historic Site), have helped Cross Creek to retain some local color.
The nearest public high school and elementary school are in Hawthorne, fifteen miles distant. There is a charter school in Micanopy, nine miles away.
Alachua County is a county in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 278,468. The county seat is Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida since 1906, when the campus opened with 106 students.
Alachua is the second-largest city in Alachua County, Florida and the third-largest in North Central Florida. According to the 2020 census, the city's population was 10,574. The city is part of the Gainesville metropolitan area, which had a population of 339,247 in 2020.
Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, and the largest city in North Central Florida, with a population of 141,085 in 2020. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, which had a population of 339,247 in 2020.
Hawthorne is a city in Alachua County, Florida, United States, incorporated in 1881. Indigenous peoples of the Americas had been living in the area since around 100 CE; Hawthorne grew around their trading trails. Throughout its history, Hawthorne has been known for its agriculture, railroad, and rural lifestyle. Hawthorne's population was 1,478 at the 2020 census, with an area of 7.38 sq mi (19.1 km2).
Micanopy is a town in Alachua County, Florida, United States, located south of Gainesville. The population as of the 2010 census was 600. The oldest community in the interior of Florida that has been continually inhabited, it has a downtown that is designated as the Micanopy Historic District and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It contains a number of antique stores, as well as several restaurants, a library, firehouse, and post office. The town's unofficial slogan is "The Town that Time Forgot."
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was an American writer who lived in rural Florida and wrote novels with rural themes and settings. Her best known work, The Yearling, about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and was later made into a movie of the same name. The book was written before the concept of young adult fiction, but is now commonly included in teen-reading lists.
Cross Creek is a 1983 American biographical drama romance film starring Mary Steenburgen as The Yearling author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. The film is directed by Martin Ritt and is based in part on Rawlings's 1942 memoir Cross Creek.
North Central Florida is a region of the U.S. state of Florida which comprises the north-central part of the state and encompasses the North Florida counties of Alachua, Marion, Putnam, Bradford, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Lafayette, Levy, Madison, Suwannee, Taylor, and Union. The region's largest city is Gainesville, home of the University of Florida and center of the Gainesville metropolitan area, which is the largest metro area in North Central Florida. As of 2020, the region had a population of 575,622 people.
Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail is a paved rail trail in Florida.
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park is a Florida State Park and historic site located on the former homestead of Pulitzer Prize-winning Florida author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953). A National Historic Landmark, it is located in Cross Creek, Florida, between Ocala and Gainesville at 18700 South County Road 325.
Newnansville, Florida was one of the first American settlements in the interior of Florida. It became the second county seat of Alachua County in 1828, and one of the central locations for activity during the Second Seminole War, during which time it was one of the largest cities in the State. In the 1850s, the Florida Railroad bypassed Newnansville, resulting in the county seat being moved to the new town of Gainesville in 1854. Consequently, Newnansville began to decline, and when a second railway bypassed the town in 1884, most of its residents relocated and formed the new City of Alachua. By 1900, Newnansville was deserted.
Evinston is an unincorporated community in Alachua and Marion counties, Florida, United States.
Citra is an unincorporated community in Marion County, Florida, United States. The community is part of the Ocala Metropolitan Statistical Area. Citra is known as the home of the pineapple orange, a name coined in 1883 for an orange (fruit) with an aroma reminiscent of the pineapple.
Cross Creek may refer to:
Cross Creek is a natural waterway in Florida connecting Lochloosa Lake to Orange Lake, in southeastern Alachua County. It is 1.0 mile (1.6 km) long, and carries the outflow from Lochloosa Lake into Orange Lake. It is normally navigable by small boats, but has completely dried up in droughts. The creek has been designated an Outstanding Florida Water. County Road 325 crosses the creek. Cross Creek gives its name to the community of Cross Creek, which is famous as the home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings for the last 25 years of her life, and for being the subject of her memoir Cross Creek, which was made into a motion picture in 1983.
Lochloosa Lake is a lake about 6,100 acres (2,500 ha) in area in Alachua County, Florida, about 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Hawthorne, and is up to 10 feet (3.0 m) deep. It is drained by Cross Creek into Orange Lake. It is largely surrounded by the Lochloosa Wildlife Management Area, and is a Fish Management Area. Lochloosa Creek is its largest tributary. The lake is noted for bass fishing
Orange Creek is a small stream in north-central and northeast Florida, that drains Orange Lake to the Ocklawaha River. Privately owned Orange Springs provides part of the water volume.
Island Grove is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. Its ZIP code is 32654.
The Tampa and Jacksonville Railway was a railroad in North Central Florida in the first half of the 20th century, with a length of 56 miles (90 km) at its greatest extent. It operated under several names in the half century of its existence.
The historic communities of Alachua County were populated places and/or places with a post office that were established in the 19th century or early 20th century in what is now Alachua County, Florida, but which were abandoned, annexed into an incorporated municipality, or had a much reduced population by the later part of the 20th century.
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