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Watching Old Florida turn new

The Starkey family ranch used to be a large, southern Pasco County spread. Now houses are springing up where cattle used to roam. It's a mixed blessing.

By DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD
Published March 28, 2006

LARGO - Standing 6 feet 2 in his cowhide boots, Jay B. Starkey Jr. didn't just tell the story of Florida's "open range days," when the landscape was pristine and cattle was king.

Starkey is concerned about suburban growth on the doorstep of his historic ranch. He spoke about those concerns at the monthly "Speaking of History" program earlier this month at Heritage Village.

But he enjoyed more talking about life decades ago, when cowboys were known as "Crackers" because of the sound of their whips. Infestations of the dreaded Texas fever tick led to gunfights and bloodshed. Starkey himself still has a vat on his land that once held arsenic-laced water used to thwart the epidemic.

The story of the Starkey family is rooted in the 1920s, when a strong work ethic was enough to weather the Depression.

In Pinellas, the family had 300 head of cattle on 665 acres near now what is Ulmerton and Starkey roads. In 1936, the family moved from Pinellas to southern Pasco County, where it created a 16,000-acre ranch in Odessa. Now the family has seen the use of the land go from horses to houses.

"I don't want to be hypocritical; the growth has brought wealth to our family," said Starkey, 70, the son of pioneer cattle rancher Jay B. Starkey. "But I have mixed feelings, because it is sad to see a way of life disappear and for people to not know what Florida was really like in its natural setting."

A variety of factors - rising land values, taxes, a booming population and the rising cost of raising cattle - forced the Starkeys to consider changes for their holdings.

From the mid 1970s to the 1980s, the family sold 8,000 acres to the Southwest Florida Water Management District for conservation and preservation. Thousands more acres - 3,600 in the mid 1990s - were sold to the Florida Department of Transportation for the Suncoast Parkway.

Still more land was cleaved off for Longleaf, a 500-acre housing development, and there are plans brewing for another 1,000-acre neotraditional town-center-oriented pedestrian community, which is expected to break ground in 2008.

One way the family tried to preserve its heritage has been through ecotourism and Starkey's Flatwoods Adventures. The experience takes tourists on guided rides through a working cattle ranch with hands-on activities, horseback riding, hiking and bird watching. Starkey hopes his new town center project will go far to create a community that maintains the beauty of Old Florida and the convenience of small-town living.

"We have been watching open land become covered with houses, and not for the betterment of the community," he said. "I am afraid that we are in danger of losing the essence of Florida and what makes it attractive."

Starkey has all but left the cattle business behind, selling his last 400 head of cattle to ranchers who lease his pastures.

"But they still have my brand on them," Starkey said. "I can still go out and look at them."

A version of this article appeared in some regional editions of the Times.

[Last modified March 28, 2006, 09:19:39]