Palm Harbor's Itty Bitty Cracker House

In Florida, a type of architecture that began to sprout up in the 1800’s through the 1930’s was called a Cracker House.  Most were made of logs making them appear like small log cabins, more crudely made than those up in the northern states but very functional.  Many of these cracker houses were one large multi-purpose room where families ate where they slept; others had small rooms within. One thing was certain – the cracker houses were small in comparison to today’s modest homes.  The main function of cracker houses was to house farm workers or cattle hands. 

These houses were built quickly and were found all over Central Florida, including Palm Harbor.  The term “cracker” has a few connotations but the most popular belief is that the word is derived from the sound of a whip that made a “crack” sound when Southern cowboys drove cattle over the land.  These people were called Crackers which later became a relatively negative slur in the 20^th Century when used incorrectly to describe a group of people.  Because many of these workers and their families lived in these structures, the name sort of stuck and is now ingrained in historical fact.

One of the last standing cracker houses in Palm Harbor was saved by the Palm Harbor Historical Society in October of 2003. The little cottage type home was located at 3646 Fisher Road, not very far from the North Pinellas Historical Museum.  The cracker house was built sometime during the Great Depression and had the luxury of 550 square feet.  The original construction had no electricity and no indoor plumbing.  Imagine living in a cracker house during the summer months in Florida with no electricity to run a fan to cool off!

This cracker house has some historical ties to Judge Hartley, whose home is the site of the North Pinellas Historical Museum. The person who built the cracker home was Bert Sutton who was the grandson of John A. Sutton who is considered another founding father of Palm Harbor.  John Sutton and Judge Hartley crossed paths frequently.  Sutton donated the land and lumber for the construction of the Curlew Methodist Church back in 1869.  This church is touted as the second oldest church in Pinellas County.  Judge Hartley, aside from being a justice of the peace and the local ladder supplier for the citrus industry, was also a lay minister of Curlew Methodist Church.  The Hartleys and Suttons are considered two families that created foundations of Palm Harbor that began in the 19^th century.

Bert Sutton built the home for his daughter and husband, the Tilleys.  They were the first family to live in the cracker style home.  In 1995, Harvey and Betty Self purchased the home and when the opportunity to build on the land presented itself, the Selfs had to remove or demolish the cracker home.  The Selfs understood the home to be integral to Palm Harbor history and when Charley and Winona Jones heard about the plight of the cracker home, they set out on a mission to save it.  In 2003, the Palm Harbor Historical Society began to raise funds to save the structure before construction began on the land where the cracker house stood.  They succeeded and the original structure of the cracker house was transported to the grounds of the North Pinellas Historical Museum and sits there today.   The inside is not open to the public pending the funds to refurbish it.

Did you know that the cracking sounds of whips were heard frequently in Palm Harbor as cattlemen drove their herds to pastures?