Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The St. Joseph Confederate Saltworks

From HMDB.

In my RoadDog's Roadlog Blog, I have been writing about taking a trip along Florida's Forgotten Coast between Port St.Joe and Apalachicola.  There is a place where you can stay called the Salt Works Cabins.  It gets its name from the old Confederate saltworks once located there until they were destroyed.

There is a historical marker located close by as recorded by the Historical Marker Database.

"A major Confederate saltworks with daily capacity of 150 bushels, before completion, was located 200 feet north.  Brick foundations were salvaged from the old city of St. Joseph.  Salt produced by evaporation of seawater was one of Florida's two chief contributions to the Confederacy (the other I believe to be cattle).

These saltworks destroyed September8, 1862, by the USS Kingfisher by bombardment and landing party action.  Destruction of Confederate saltworks was a comparable blow "to the Southern cause as the fall of Charleston."

Erected 1964.

US Naval actions against saltworks along the coasts continued throughout the war.

No comments:

Post a Comment