Bagdad Lumber Mill - Bagdad, Florida
Posted by: 
hoteltwo
N 30° 36.319 W 087° 01.882
16R E 496993 N 3385862
Marker is located at the Bagdad Mill Site Park at the end of east Main Street. Other interpretive markers provide info on the Mill and shipbuilding that also occurred there.
Waymark Code: WMTGBN
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 11/20/2016
Views: 9
Marker text:
In 1829, Joseph Forsyth saw economic potential in the vast pine forest of North Florida. Old growth yellow pine was one of the world's most prized building materials and the deepwater juncture of Pond Creek and the Blackwater River was an open door to the world market. By the early 1830s, Forsyth and his partner Ezekiel Simpson produced 250,000 feet of lumber yearly at Arcadia Mill on Pond Creek. The lumber was moved by flatboat down to the Blackwater River, loaded on larger vessels and shipped to buyers. In 1835 the Florida territorial legislature granted a charter to the Arcadia partners for Florida's third railroad, The Pond Creek and Blackwater River Canal Company. The railway used mule-drawn carts on iron-covered wood rails to transport lumber from Arcadia to the Bagdad Mill here. A steam-powered sawmill installed at Bagdad in the early 1840s expanded production. Eventually Bagdad's shipping market reached beyond the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean to North and South Atlantic ports and to Western European, Mediterranean, and Scandinavian countries. When the mill closed in 1939, trade journals recalled the Bagdad Mill as home to one of the most successful lumber organizations in the Western Hemisphere.
A Florida Heritage Site
Marker Number: F-882
Date: 2015
County: Santa Rosa
Marker Type: City
Sponsored or placed by: Bagdad Waterfronts Florida Partnership, Blackwater Pyrates, Florida Public Archeology Network and the Florida Department of State.
Website: [Web Link]
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Visit Instructions:
In your log, please say if you learned something new, and if you took any extra time to explore the area once you stopped at the historic marker waymark.
Please post a photo at the marker location.