Putnam Lodge
Posted by: Markerman62
N 29° 38.438 W 083° 08.512
17R E 292656 N 3280882
Along US 19 northwest of Cross City.
Waymark Code: WMEM7Y
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 06/12/2012
Views: 11
Putnam Lodge, built in 1927-28 by the Putnam Lumber Company, is part of a bygone era in Florida's forestry history. Here, beside the Old Dixie Highway, Putnam Lodge, part of the "company town" of Shamrock, accommodated tourists, transients and company executives and clients. The lobby and dining room of the 36-room lodge were decorated exclusively with the still preserved, artfully stenciled "pecky cypress", a now virtually extinct lumber product. In its day, the Putnam Lumber Company, founded by William O'Brien, a timber magnate of Irish decent, and associates including E.B. Putnam, employed hundreds at its two state-of-the-art sawmills in Shamrock. The mills annually produced and shipped worldwide millions of feet of "deep swamp tidewater cypress" and "dense Florida longleaf yellow pine" lumber, products that are now rare because the old growth trees are gone. Shamrock provided its residents and employees with comfortable homes, a commissary, a store comparable to "any city department store", two schools, two hotels, the Shamrock Dairy Farm, and an ice plant producing 18 tons of ice daily. The lodge is representative of a time of local timber supremacy and economic prosperity.
Marker Number: F-515
Date: 2011
County: Dixie
Marker Type: Roadside
Sponsored or placed by: The Florida Division of the Society of American Foresters, Friends of Putnam Lodge, and the Florida Department of State
Website: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:
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