SANTA ROSA COUNTY, Fla. — Before Northwest Florida was known for beaches and tourism, it ran on timber.<\/p>\n
Arcadia Mill in Santa Rosa County was a hub of the industry.<\/p>\n
Today, the entrance to the Arcadia Mill archaeological site looks a lot like a neighborhood park.<\/p>\n
In fact, it is. Many people go there to hike the trails or picnic among the trees, enjoying the quiet sense of calm.<\/p>\n
But just beyond the historic marker, there\u2019s a hidden world \u2014 one that helped shape Northwest Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is area A of the excavation, this is the Sawmill Bridge,\u201d said Alli Frank with the University of West Florida Historic Trust.<\/p>\n
Beneath a century of forest growth lies the footprint of an industry that once powered the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cArcadia Mill was the first and really the largest industrial complex in Northwest Florida,\u201d said Phillip Mayhair with the UWF Historic Trust.<\/p>\n
In the early 1800s, the area\u2019s vast longleaf pine forests drew developers looking to capitalize on an abundant natural resource.<\/p>\n
A water-powered sawmill was built along Pond Creek \u2014 strategically placed to use the current not only for power, but for transportation.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would see these mills located on creeks or rivers because that was powering the mill, but it was also the way of transporting the logs,\u201d Mayhair explained. \u201cThey would dig ditches across the countryside, float the logs to the mill, and eventually send them down to Pensacola for export.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, visitors can still see pieces of that system.<\/p>\n
Inside the visitor center are tools and artifacts uncovered during archaeological digs. Outside, remnants of log flumes crisscross the landscape, along with traces of a dam that once created a 60-acre mill pond.<\/p>\n
In its peak years, dozens of workers \u2014 including enslaved laborers \u2014 cut, moved, and processed timber here, turning it into one of the region\u2019s most valuable commodities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose industries are really what created our communities that are still here today,\u201d Mayhair said. \u201cMilton was a mill town.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not far from the mill site, framed by towering live oaks, sits the homesite of the mill owners. A marker shows where the original structure stood before it burned in the 1930s.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re literally walking through antebellum history,\u201d Frank said. \u201cYou\u2019re walking through the archaeological features here.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Frank, the site is more than a place to study \u2014 it\u2019s personal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up in this neighborhood, playing around the archaeological site,\u201d she said. \u201cMy friends and I would come after school and just run up and down the bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her childhood fascination grew to a passion, and then a career.<\/p>\n
Now when she sees visitors here enjoying nature, she knows she can help them see into the past, just like she does.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistory is all around you,\u201d she said. \u201cYou might not recognize it, but it\u2019s still there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA ROSA COUNTY, Fla. — Before Northwest Florida was known for beaches and tourism, it ran on timber.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-263006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}