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The first Wild West was not in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado or California.

Florida, take a bow. 

Cattlemen — both Native American and European — have been herding cattle across Florida’s western flatlands since 1521, when seven Andalusian cattle and several horses, courtesy of explorer Ponce de Leon, set hooves on what is now Sanibel Island. 

Clint Raulerson knows the history. He’s a fourth-generation Florida cowboy whose father and grandfather slept on the trail, with lowing cattle and the songs of fellow cowboys to lull them to sleep.

Raulerson, 51, has been riding herds since he was “old enough to keep up, maybe 4 or 5 years old,” he recalled. “But I’d get in the way than anything back then,” he admitted with a grin. 

Raulerson is one of 16 narrators at the first Stories of the Paradise Coast weekend Saturday, Nov. 17, and Sunday, Nov. 18, at the Collier Museum in East Naples, all of them people who have lived in or explored Southwest Florida’s rich vein of history.

More: With cattle drive, cowboys and families celebrate ranching heritage of Immokalee area

More: Farming, ranching a way of life in northern Everglades

Cattle Drive and Jamboree: Cowboys are alive and well in Immokalee

Raulerson could have been the model for the archetypal American cowboy. “Ma’am” and “sir” are in nearly every sentence he speaks. His garb — Western shirt, jeans and a straw Stetson in summer, a felt one in winter — fits an outdoor life of long days and animals that don’t respond to the word “please.” 

He represents an industry that has changed in tangential ways. This cowboy, a champion in horse competitions, clicks through his appointments on an iPhone.

“We have trailers and trucks now. I do a little computer work,” he said, adding slyly, “I try not to do too much. The cows can’t read it.”

There’s no open range now. The advent of tick fever — plus residential development and road traffic — required cattle to be sequestered. A law permitting officials to seize roaming cattle and fine the owners spurred the building of fences in the early 1950s. Raulerson’s grandfather’s job of range boss no longer included separating branded cattle from those belonging to fellow drivers for the trip to the market.

Some of the dangers have changed, too. Now the cattle drivers are not so worried about themselves — the hidden snakes and razor-sharp grasses that mandated thick, knee-high boots. They worry about coyotes, a fairly new predator that has moved across the United States from the West to compete with three age-old nemeses: bears, buzzards and the endangered Florida panther. 

“It’s probably not politically correct to think of him that way, but that’s what he is — a predator, ” Raulerson said of panthers. The ranchers’ weapons are few against the buzzard-like crested caracara and panthers, both of which are protected species. They can only try to scare off the creatures.

“Most of the time you don’t see them. You just find part of your calf,” Raulerson said dryly. Predators have killed up to 20 percent of some herds’ young, according to a ranchers’ study of calf mortality. “We’ve learned to live with it, to a point.”

The cows are still driven to market by horse.

“It’s still the best way to handle cattle efficiently, and with low stress,” Raulerson said. “We still brand cattle to this day. It’s the best way to definitely identify them.”

Every spring and summer, Raulerson and a small clan of fellow cowboys move owners’ herds to branding locations or to markets in Arcadia and Okeechobee. Most tourists and some full-time residents have decamped by then, so they don’t see cattle on the hoof on Collier County’s back roads. The town of Immokalee organizes a symbolic drive and jamboree — March 9 next year — so the public can see a portion of a cattle drive.

Raulerson also trains ranch horses. He’s a U.S. champion in a class called colt starting; in that class the contestant has 3½ hours within a two-day time frame to make an unbroken horse gentle enough to ride. The contestant then is required to tame, saddle and ride the horse through an obstacle course. Raulerson has won the U.S. championship and he’ll try again in Las Vegas, barely three months after an accident over Labor Day weekend.

“My last season ended abruptly with a broken pelvis in Bend, Oregon,” he  said. “Five days in an Oregon hospital is not my idea of a fun time.”

Raulerson is back in the saddle already. It’s where he wants to be.

“None of us will leave this lifestyle,” he said. He loves everything about it, he said — “from waking up in the morning, walking into the barn and feeding my horses to dragging home way after dark after you’ve been in the saddle all day long and you’re beat and tired.

“It’s satisfying. It’s so satisfying.

“When the teacher would go around the class and ask everyone what they wanted to be, I always had the same answer: A cowboy,” Raulerson said. Some teachers would laugh, he recalled.

He’s grateful that not all of them did. The education system in LaBelle and Immokalee  taught him well enough that he wrote his own book of poetry several years ago: “Cowboy Legacy: A Lifetime in the Saddle.”

“It’s more like stories set to rhyme,” Raulerson said modestly.

Stories of the Paradise Coast weekend

Visitors to the Stories of the Paradise Coast weekend can hear cowboy Clint Raulerson Sunday and 15 other Native Americans, artists, historians, teachers and naturalists, both Saturday and Sunday, talking about the history, characteristics, quirks and mysteries of Southwest Florida. (For a full list of speakers, see the Collier County Museums’ website.)

The idea came from the museums’ theme for the year: “Explore the story.”

“One of the motivating factors was that we do these lecture series once a month, so we have these existing relationships with people: authors, painters and local people who have deep or close perspectives to different aspects of the county,” said Ryan Davis, communications spokesman for the organization.

The organization wanted to supplement the storytelling, so the weekend will have a variety of events for all generations in addition to the storyteller sessions, he said:

• Improv stories presented by Naples Players. It’s under a big oak tree where visitors can sit and shout out a story theme, and then the Players will create a scene around it.
• Collector pins. Those who attend a storyteller talk can pick up a button representing that speaker, and the first 500 children receive a lanyard on which to string them. 
• Food. Texas Roadhouse will serve pulled pork, hot dogs, soda and side items.
• A giant picture quilt. Tools will be available onsite. Those who create a square can add it to the quilt.

When: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 17 and 18

Where: Collier Museum at Government Center, 3331 U.S. 41 E., Naples

Information: https://colliermuseums.com or 239-252-8476

Admission: Free

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