St Lucie-Volusia-Orange County FlArchives Biographies.....Raulerson, Keightley Brarton 1861 - 
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Author: B. F. Johnson (1909)

Keightley Brarton Raulerson

    Very few people outside of those interested know anything of the magnitude
of the cattle industry in Florida. When the stranger hears of men in Florida
owning five, ten and twenty thousand head of cattle, he puts it down as a fable,
because these immense herds are associated in his mind with the vast ranges of
Texas, Wyoming, Montana, and the western plains States. But Florida was in the
cattle business when these States were ranged over by Indians, trappers and
buffalo. As far back as 1850, Florida was raising more cattle than the local
population could use, and was also exporting the surplus to the West Indian
Islands. From that day on the business has been of large proportions. Up to a
comparatively recent period, it has been the leading industry of the southern
half of the peninsula, as it was the very first business out of which ready
money could be made in a remote section distant from any markets. The cattle
could be driven on their own legs to the market, which made the industry a
preferred one to those things requiring transportation by the slow methods
prevailing forty and fifty years ago. In one ten-year period Florida exported to
Cuba $7,000,000 worth of cattle. In a later five year period, $2,600,000 worth
were exported. This was entirely above and beyond the local consumption.

    Our subject, K. B. Raulerson, of Fort Pierce, is a cattle man, and though he
still adheres to the primary industry of the State, he is a thoroughly
up-to-date citizen upon all questions of modern import. Mr. Raulerson, like most
of the men engaged in the cattle business, is a native of the State. He was born
at Seville, in Volusia county, on September 19, 1861. The family is of Welsh
descent and their first progenitor in this country settled in Georgia. Wade H.
Raulerson, the father of K. B. moved from Georgia to Florida in 1858 and married
Katherine Hart of Seville, Fla. Young Raulerson obtained such education as the
public schools at Geneva, Fla., could give him, and in 1881, then barely grown,
he engaged in farming and stock raising in Orange county, Fla. With growing
knowledge and larger capital he concentrated his energies, in 1896, in the
cattle business, and in 1903 organized the East Coast Cattle Company, of which
he has since been the president. Mr. Raulerson is a thoroughly capable man in
his line, who has worked himself forward to a position of prominence in the
community and is recognized as one of the substantial men of St. Lucie county.
He has served his county as a Commissioner for one term and was for three terms
Chairman of the Democratic executive committee of Brevard county before St.
Lucie county was cut off from Brevard.

    Mr. Raulerson has been twice married. First, to Miss Elizabeth Randolph, a
daugher of Lucius and Isidore (Preston) Randolph. His second wife was a widow,
Mrs. Erne Alderman, who was the daughter of Eli O. and Lucy (Geiger) Morgan, of
Florida.

    In politics Mr. Raulerson is identified with the Democratic party and is a
communicant of the Methodist Church. He is associated with the Board of Trade of
Fort Pierce, and is a live member of a live organization in a live town, and
unless all the signs fail, Fort Pierce has before it an even larger future than
its most sanguine friends now anticipate. To that future Mr. Raulerson, yet in
the prime of life, will undoubtedly contribute his full share. Upon questions of
public importance affecting his State, Mr. Raulerson believes that the convict
lease system should be abolished, that the convicts should be worked on public
roads and that the Everglades should be drained. In this last opinion of his
there seems to be some differences even between intelligent men in Florida, but
to the impartial outsider it appears a very sound position. If the 5,000,000
acres of extremely rich muck land now covered by the Everglades could be brought
under cultivation, the development of that great acreage in sugar farms would
yield enough sugar to supply every pound of the millions of tons used by the
United States and would carry into Florida the one hundred millions of dollars
we now pay each year for the sugar imported from abroad.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

FLORIDA EDITION
MAKERS OF AMERICA
AN HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL WORK BY AN ABLE CORPS OF WRITERS
VOL. III.
Published under the patronage of 
The Florida Historical Society, Jacksonville, Florida

ADVISORY BOARD:
HON. W. D.  BLOXHAM
COL. FRANK HARRIS
HON. R. W. DAVIS
SEN. H. H. McCREARY
HON. F. P. FLEMING
W. F. STOVALL
C. A. CHOATE, SECRETARY

1909
A. B. CALDWELL
ATLANTA, GA.

COPYRIGHT 1909
B. F. JOHNSON

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