Here are some – not all – of the people who passed through the gates of Cow Creek Ranch
of Cow Creek in 1976 and their grove in 1981. They sold their
North Carolina farm in the 1990s. Tommy Sloan died in Fort
Pierce Nov. 10, 1996, at the age of 64. Jo Ann spent the last
five years of her life in a nursing home in Franklin, North Carolina,
39
THE PEOPLE OF COW CREEK RANCH
from 1923 to 1976. If you would like to add your biography to the list,
email your experiences to cowcreek@indianrivermag.com
Founder Frank Raulerson began
purchasing parcels that would
become Cow Creek Ranch in
1923. A former state senator
and longtime member of the
state’s Livestock Sanitary Board,
he made the 23,000-acre Cow
Creek Ranch on the St. Lucie/
Okeechobee county line his
home ranch. He owned two
other ranches, Dixie Ranch and
Taylor Creek Ranch, of similar
size as well as a smaller ranch
Frank Raulerson
in Fellsmere. He sold all except Cow Creek before his death at
the age of 80 in 1954. His wife, Annie Louise Raulerson, had
died in 1951 at the age of 71, and he left his entire estate to his
granddaughter, Jo Ann Raulerson Sloan.
where she died in Dec. 22, 2020, at the age of 90.
Kathy and Debra Sloan
Diane Robertson was married
to Cow Creek cowboy Don
Robertson and was secretary at
the Cow Creek corporate office
and later financial manager. She
divorced Robertson in 1970 and
was in a relationship with Tommy
Sloan until his death in 1996. She
married Robert Orme in 2003.
He died in 2005. Town clerk of
St. Lucie Village for 24 years, she
died in 2018 at the age of 81.
Diane Robertson
Thomas Leighton “Tommy’’ Sloan and Jo Ann Sloan
Jo Ann Raulerson Sloan was raised by her grandparents, Frank
and Annie Louise Raulerson, after the death of her father,
Alfred Keightley Raulerson, in a boating accident in 1938. She
married Thomas Leighton “Tommy’’ Sloan in 1952 and they
had two daughters, Kathy and Debra. Jo Ann inherited Cow
Creek Ranch and an estate valued at at least $5 million when
her grandfather died in 1954. Tommy and Jo Ann took over
the ranch, modernizing the vaccination and dipping of cattle
against diseases and by the late 1960s were hailed as model
ranchers and featured on the ABC television show Discovery.
Tommy became president of the Florida Cattlemen’s Association
and Jo Ann was president of the auxiliary organization, the
Florida Cowbelles. The Sloans sold the home ranch sections
Kathy Sloan Blanton was the oldest daughter of TL and Jo Ann
Sloan. She learned to ride horses and herd cattle at an early
age. She died Oct. 11, 2022, at the age of 68 as the Cow Creek
Chronicles series was being published. She was survived by four
daughters, 10 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren. “Kathy
was always the wild child,’’ her obituary read. “She lived life
on her terms.’’ It also noted that she was preceded in death by
her husband, Steve Blanton, but was survived by three previous
husbands: John Edgar, Thomas Summerlin, and Joel Burman.
Debra Sloan is the younger daughter of TL and Jo Ann Sloan.
Like her sister, Debra learned to ride horses and herd cattle at
an early age. She attended the Bartram School in Jacksonville
and later graduated from Western Carolina University. She
managed her family’s Tellico Trout Farm in the 1990s. A past
president of the U.S. Trout Farmers Association, she has been
an agri-business and aquaculture specialist for the North Carolina
Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for 28
years. She lives in Tellico outside Franklin, North Carolina.
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