Preview
Creation Date
8-1-2016
Description
The marker reads: "PUTNAM LODGE -- 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 the 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 descent, 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. F-515 A FLORIDA HERITAGE SITE SPONSORED BY THE FLORIDA DIVISION OF THE SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS FRIENDS OF PUTNAM LODGE AND THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF STATE 2011" Top of sign: Florida Heritage emblem
Latitude, Longitude
29 deg 38' 26.42", 83 deg 8' 30.70"
Recommended Citation
Taylor,, George Lansing Jr., "Putnam Lodge Marker, Cross City, FL" (2016). George Lansing Taylor Collection Main Gallery. 7386.
https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/historical_architecture_main/7386
