LIVING HISTORY
GREGORY ENNS
Alfred Norman, 85, grew up at Cow Creek Ranch, where his father was foreman from the 1930s to the early 1950s. Norman is seen here at SSS Ranch, where
he was longtime foreman. Norman dropped out of school in fourth grade to work full time at Cow Creek.
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The 85-year-old Norman recalls Frank Raulerson as a tall
man who smoked Tampa Nugget cigars and drove a Cadillac.
“My dad called him Frank, but everyone else called him Mr.
Raulerson,’’ Norman says.
Norman, who began working as a cowboy at Cow Creek after
dropping out of fourth grade, says Raulerson was a smart
businessman. “He knew what he was doing. To start with,
he raised his own bulls and then started using Hereford and
Brahma bulls. He didn’t have Angus or nothin’ like that. He
had Hereford and Brahma and bred them to the scrub cattle.’’
Norman says Frank Raulerson’s younger brother, Lucius
“Loosh’’ Raulerson, was a longtime cook at the ranch. He
says Raulerson also for a time was in a cattle partnership
with cattleman Nathan “Teet” Holmes.
In those early days of the ranch, much of the work focused
on clearing land, improving pastures and putting up fence,
Norman says. Cow Creek had a sawmill, which was used to
cut cypress from the swamp, among other places. “I remember
when it wasn’t nothin’ but rough woods,’’ he says.
Raulerson also had a herd of sheep and parts of the ranch
were leased out to tomato farmers, according to Norman. The
tomato farmers helped in ranch development because they
had to continuously clear land to rotate their crops due to
nematodes, a parasite that attacks the roots of plants.
Besides his business savvy, Frank Raulerson had another
quality for which he is still remembered: He was frugal, his
only extravagance the car he drove. “He was tight with his
money,’’ Norman recalls. “He was a businessman. He didn’t
throw no money away. If he spent a dollar he expected to
make 50 cents back.’’
Norman says that when and old fence was repaired, Raulerson
would have the cowboys remove the old staples and
straighten them so they could be used again “He wouldn’t
buy no fence posts. He’d cut ‘em out of the cypress swamp.’’
Norman also recollects the well-circulated story about the
time cowboys who worked for Raulerson got their money
together to buy ingredients to have the cook bake them a pie,
an extravagance not on Raulerson’s budget-conscious menu
at the ranch. When the pie was done and the cowboys were
eating it they offered a piece to Raulerson. But Raulerson
demurred, saying it was a luxury they couldn’t have every
night. When the cowboys told Raulerson they had pooled
their own money to buy the ingredients, Raulerson offered
that he’d have a piece after all.
By the 1940s, the days of rounding up cattle and driving
them to market by horseback had ended, with tractor-trailers
arriving at the ranch to pick up steers, according to Norman.
In his final years, Frank Raulerson continues to build and
grow Cow Creek but sells off the Taylor Creek and Dixie
ranches, preparing his estate for an easy transition for his
granddaughter and sole heir, Jo Ann Raulerson.
“By the time he got elderly, he looked at what he had, and
he had three ranches the size of Cow Creek,’’ says Debra
Sloan, Jo Ann’s youngest daughter. “He decided to sell two
of the ranches because he didn’t think a woman could handle
all that property, and then he put it into a trust until Mother
was 30 or so.’’
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE HEIR
Frank Raulerson’s attention to his estate might not have
been so detailed if not for the death of his only child, Alfred.
By newspaper accounts, Alfred enjoyed a privileged youth,
accompanying his mother on various trips to visit relatives,
including to New York City, to visit Annie Louise’s sister,
who was married to a Vaudeville actor.
Although Alfred would follow his father’s footsteps into
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