This Moment in Florida History: Florida’s Historic Naval Stores Industry
Announcer: In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León landed on Florida’s shore, beginning a cultural relationship between Spain and Florida that will be commemorated throughout the state on its 500th Anniversary in 2013.
This Moment in Florida History features Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam.
Commissioner Putnam:
In the early 1900s, Florida led the world in the production of naval stores – products derived from pine resin. These products were called naval stores because they had been used historically to preserve and waterproof wooden sailing ships. By the 20th century, however, they were used to manufacture everything from soap to paint. Florida’s naval stores industry got its start under Spanish rule and developed slowly over the centuries.
In the 1500s, when the Spanish explorers landed in Florida, they encountered vast old-growth forests. Nearly 80 percent of what is now Florida was covered in trees.
Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who founded St. Augustine in 1565, described in his letters Florida’s extensive pine woods. Access to these woods would be one of the advantages of colonizing Florida, he wrote, since they would provide Spain with great quantities of tar and pitch for shipbuilding.
Yet the Spanish were slow to exploit Florida’s natural resources. Their progress was impeded by conflicts with the Native Americans, French, and British; outbreaks of disease; and the simple fact that with its sprawling empire Spain was overstretched. For centuries, Florida’s economy languished.
Finally, in the 1730s, Florida began exporting tar, pitch, and masts to Cuba for shipbuilding. Exports increased in the 1750s, when King Ferdinand VI began encouraging Florida’s fledgling naval stores industry with tax breaks. Gradually production and markets grew, and by the start of the 20th century it was Florida’s largest industry.