Florida Memory is administered by the Florida Department of State, Division of Library and Information Services, Bureau of Archives and Records Management. The digitized records on Florida Memory come from the collections of the State Archives of Florida and the special collections of the State Library of Florida.
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Series 1640, RG 158, Folk Art Apprenticeship Program Slides, 1993-1994 ; Box 15, FF5
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Whip maker George "Junior" Mills of Okeechobee has been working cattle on Florida ranches - mostly in the Lake Okeechobee area, but as far north as Wildwood - since he was fourteen. He estimates that he has made more than 2,000 cow whips in sixty-one years.
Mills began teaching himself to make cow whips at fifteen, using leather from discarded boot tops. Today he painstakingly fashions whips from buckskin by first cutting the "strings" from tanned hides, then braiding several layers in a carefully controlled taper. Mills protects his finished whips by coating them with a mixture he makes by heating beef tallow, beeswax, and pine rosin together.
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Chicago Manual of Style
Stone, Robert L., 1944-. George "Junior" Mills hold a whip he has been using for 11 years - Okeechobee, Florida. 1994. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. <https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/108196>, accessed 20 June 2026.
MLA
Stone, Robert L., 1944-. George "Junior" Mills hold a whip he has been using for 11 years - Okeechobee, Florida. 1994. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. Accessed 20 Jun. 2026.<https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/108196>
AP Style Photo Citation
(State Archives of Florida/Stone)
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