Laurel Turpentine Company / Blackburn Sawmill Quarters

Laurel Turpentine Company, also, Blackburn Sawmill Quarters. . , Laurel Turpentine Company , As the turpentine industry spread through southwest Florida, landowners leased turpentine rights to contractors who hired operators for camps that would harvest gum from thousands of acres of pine woods. The Laurel Turpentine Company was located on the east side of the Seaboard Air Line Railway to the north and south of present-day Laurel Road. Workers' quarters included a commissary, a cemetery and a building that served the Mt. Zion Baptist Church on weekends and elementary school students and community groups during the week. , Blackburn Sawmill Quarters , North of the turpentine complex, the J. Ray Arnold Lumber Company set up a sawmill in the mid-1920s for the Palmer family's Sarasota-Venice Company. The company had a web of rails that reached into the pine woods to haul rough-sawn timber for finer cutting. The sawmill quarters contained houses and a commissary for workers and their families. , To the west across the tracks were the Blackburn quarters. Built by Spencer Blackburn, the houses were available for rent by workers in the local turpentine, lumber and agricultural industries.