The late 19th century brought countless changes to the face of Florida. The landscape of towering pine trees and expansive cypress swamps on the southerly peninsula invited new inhabitants and spawned new industries, including several northern logging companies. In those early years, armed with only an ax, loggers clear-cut the longleaf pine forests and harvested the giant cypress. Pines and cypress, some thousands of years old, and subsequent hand-cut logs were then rafted together and floated downriver to nearby sawmills.
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