We felt as if we were just walking through a nature park at Arcadia Mill in Pace, Florida. We were actually visiting Florida’s first and largest antebellum industrial complex! There is beauty in the Arcadia Mill woods but also the beastly in the Mill’s history. A large part of Arcadia Mill’s history is industrial slavery. The Arcadia Mill site was a huge complex with various mills, a grist mill, a blackmithshop, a mule-drawn railroad and a sixteen-mile long log flume! The vast complex was built and operated with industrial slavery. The industrial site began with a sawmill. It grew to have a second sawmill. Later, a textile mill was run…
BEAUTY AND THE BEASTLY: INDUSTRIAL SLAVERY AT ARCADIA MILL, FLORIDA
