Honoring the legacy of Pulitzer-prize winning novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, this state park encompasses the homestead she lived on between 1928 and 1953.
During these years, she penned many books and articles and entertained winter visitors while maintaining productive orange groves.
Marjorie’s homesteadMost visitors come to tour her home, where guides re-create the 1940s as they explain her impact on both her home community and the literary world.
A lesser-known aspect of the park is its two nature trails, one exploring her beloved lakefront “Jungle,” the other through the footprint of her orange grove.
Quotes from Marjorie add meaning to the Jungle TrailResources
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Overview
Location: Cross Creek
Length: 1.5 miles
Trailhead: 29.480430, -82.160259
Address: 18700 S CR 325, Cross Creek
Fees: $3 per group
Restroom: At the trailhead
Land Manager: Florida State Parks
Phone: 352-466-3672
Grounds open 9-5 daily. House tours offered Wed-Sun. Leashed pets welcome, but not in the home. Pick up after your pet.
Directions
From Interstate 75 in Micanopy, take exit 384. Drive 1.3 miles east on CR 234 to US 441. Turn right and continue 1.5 miles south to CR 346. Make a left and follow it 5.1 miles to a T intersection. Turn right on CR 346 to proceed to Cross Creek. Pass the homestead after 4.1 miles. Make the next right turn into Kate Barnes Park. Make the first right inside the park for the small lot just outside the fenced homestead. If it’s full, use the larger lot around the boat basin.
About the Park
On tour days, costumed guides explain what life was like in Cross Creek when Marjorie sat on the front porch and typed the drafts of her novels.
The most well-known of them was The Yearling, which became an Oscar-winning film.
A breezy place to writeSet in what remains of her original orange grove, this dogtrot Cracker home offers some quirks specific to its northern resident.
One of these is the “liquor cabinet” with firewater on top and firewood on the bottom. She also used inverted mixing bowls as decorative fixtures for lights.
Christmas at Marjorie’s houseCary Grant, Spencer Tracy, and many others stayed in Marjorie’s guest room. Her husband Norton Baskin, a local hotelier, and she entertained many legends.
On days when tours aren’t available, wandering the homestead gives you the feel of Cross Creek in the late 1940s.
Marjorie’s kitchen gardenWatch the chickens peck at corn, and peek into the tenant cabin. Or take a hike on the pathways where Marjorie used to walk to Orange Lake and to her orange grove.
Parking for this park is shared with a county park providing access to Orange Lake.
Kate Barnes Park has a boat ramp and bank fishing as well as restrooms, a playground, and picnic pavilions.
Kate Barnes ParkHike
Pay your fee at the walk in entrance adjoining the kiosk and enter the park via an original gate in the fence.
The first of many of quotes from Marjorie’s written works is displayed on a signboard under the oak canopy.
Entering Marjorie’s worldWalk back in time by strolling out from the oak hammock into the sunshine on a worn sand path into a grassy clearing defining the homestead.
Cabbage palms rise above a bed of coontie with a National Historic Landmark marker.
A step into Old FloridaThe first of many benches sits in a puddle of shade. On the right is the original barn, where seasonally, citrus from the groves may be displayed.
It would have been packed into wooden shipping crates under the shelter of this building. Rows of citrus trees stand nearby.
The barnHead towards the front of the modest home. Now restored, Marjorie’s beloved car sits in the shade of the carport.
The entry walkway leads to a screened front porch. A detached adjoining building contains bedrooms.
Marjorie’s homeTurn towards the highway and walk out the front gate, crossing the road to the opposite side.
The Grove Trail begins here, 0.2 miles from the parking area. It tunnels into what remains of Marjorie’s Cross Creek Groves.
Palm fronds fill the understory beneath a canopy of oaks and now-feral citrus trees, many bearing fruit in winter.
Start of the Grove TrailThe low canopy dissipates in a transition to pines and oaks along the straightaway. Massive grapevines tangle under the trees.
Citrus and oaks appear again as the trail curves into a hardwood hammock. Majestic mature live oaks form a high canopy.
Citrus along the footpathLong, slender cabbage palms strain for the sky. At 0.4 miles, bear right at a trail junction with a bench.
Start a counterclockwise loop through this lush hammock. Cabbage palms and citrus thrive beneath the ancient live oaks.
Near Lake LochloosaThis beautiful hammock stretches towards Lake Lochloosa, unseen in the distance but not far away. Palm fronds frame the footpath on a sweep past another bench.
Past a cluster of oak trunks rising from a single point as sand live oaks do and continue along an obvious curve, completing the loop by 0.6 miles.
In the thick of the hammockTurn right to exit along the Grove Trail, jogging through one more curve. The straightaway empties to CR 325 by 0.8 miles.
Cross the road back to the homestead and walk up the walkway behind the gate. If a tour is available during your visit, it’s well worth your time.
Bedrooms for the homeWalk around the house to the right to peer in the bedroom windows.
Circle around past the outhouse to the kitchen garden. Chickens may be roaming free, pecking at pests.
Proceed around to the chicken coop and turn right to start the Jungle Trail. Entering the lush hammock, walk in deep shade on a sand path.
Chicken coopPass small signs with sketches and quotes from Marjorie about her beloved homestead. Don’t be surprised to see chickens scratching through the underbrush.
The canopy lifts as the trail edges closer to Orange Lake, reaching a T intersection 0.9 miles into your walk. Turn right to follow the Hammock Trail.
Hammock Trail junctionThis spur delves deeper into the glorious natural beauty of this mature hammock. The high canopy above is accented by the riotous growth surrounding the footpath.
Slipping between a thicket of cabbage palms, pass below a sizable live oak. The path narrows, winding between palm fronds through twists and turns.
Shadowy hammockThickly covered in leaves, it reveals light beyond the trees, reaching a bench at a collection of stubby cypress knees at 1.1 miles.
This is the rim of the marshy Orange Lake basin, defined by the grasses growing beyond treeline outside of the park fence.
Orange Lake floodplainTurn around and retrace this beautiful walk beneath the trees to the trail junction with the sign pointing to the Tenant House.
Proceed forward for a walk past more of Marjorie’s quotes within the shady hammock, sunlight illuminating thick draperies of Spanish moss above.
Along the pathwayEmerge at a small wooden home at 1.3 miles. Far more modest than Marjorie’s, it contains a quilted bed and dining room furniture along with a woodstove for cooking and warmth.
With an unscreened sitting porch, it sits on the very edge of the small citrus grove adjoining her home and barn.
Tenant homeReturn to the chicken coop to walk along the east side of Marjorie’s home, past her water pump and kitchen steps.
Cross the grove to the sand entry path past the barn to exit the homestead, reaching the parking area at 1.5 miles.
Exiting to the trailheadTrail Map
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Exploring Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park
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