Forgotten Dye Plant in Shalimar Area

 Few know of the dye plant that once stood at Black Pointe, before the founding of the town of Shalimar, and before the planning of Port Dixie started. When World War One started Germany stopped exporting dye to the United States, leaving the U.S. in need of the product.

 Here comes Silas Gibson, a pioneer of the Wright area was a native of Quebec he moved to Florida in 1915, in the mid-1920s he built the first roads between Niceville to Crestview and another between Niceville and Mossy Head. He also constructed several schools in Wright, Niceville, Baker, Bonifay, Milligan, and Leonia.

 In 1916 Silas Gibson was contracted to build a Dye Plant on the beaches of the Choctawhatchee Bay, which he did on the tiny peninsula that is Black Pointe.[1] Construction on the Plant finished sometime before January of 1917 and work on producing dye had started, however renovating and enlarging the plant was being considered at the time.[2][3][4] Before they could do that though the Plant needed employees in October the Dye Plant had around 25 employees but more were needed.[5] Luckily for the industry the plant would jump to employing over a hundred people the next month, and would require the local mail boat to sail to Black Pointe to drop off the workers everyday.[6]

Silas Gibson in his old age.

Fred B. Davis and Ball working at the Dye Plant.

 Among the employees was one W. N. Hartgrove Jr.[7] along with a fellow named Fred Bryant Davis who, interestedly enough, used his pet Oxen named ‘Ball’ to haul the minerals in the minecarts there.[8]

 The ‘minerals’ that Ball was hauling were in fact Humate-cemented sand. Humate cemented sand is an organic dark colored sandstone like material made from soil and decomposed plants. A large deposit of which was discovered at Black Pointe by Dr. John Diederich Haseman who would have a large interest in the Dye Plant.[4]

 The Humate-cemented sand can sometimes be seen on the surface of the beaches at Black Pointe, which could have inspired the name of the peninsula. The job of the workers would be to mine the humate and turn it into dye which would be shipped to Pensacola where it would then be shipped to other spots in the United States. The Plant was estimated to produce 300 barrels per-week.[9]

 In December the Dye Plant was being expanded and improved with new machinery the man in charge of this task was a Capt. J. C. Patterson who sent a letter to the Pensacola News Journal regarding the developments.

 In the letter Captain Patterson remarks

“Never did I dream that there was so much wealth beneath the, sandy soil of Black Point …  I had never heard of it, or seen It in print, and I doubt very much if there are fifty persons in the city who have ever heard anything about a dye plant operated on a small scale for more than a year at Black Point … the vicinity, but of the entire state. The writer has been all over this globe of ours, has associated with men in all walks of life, and engaged in various businesses, but never has he had received more congenial, friendly and gentlemanly treatment, than since coming to the Black Point Dye Works.”[10]

The abandoned Dye Plant in 1926.

 This perspective from Captain Patterson does let us know that even to the nearby residents of the Choctawhatchee Bay area the Dye Works weren’t particularly well known. Interestingly enough a little community would develop at the Dye Works cottages would be built at the plant,[11] presumably to house the workers. There were also social events at the Dye Plant such as a dance on the evening of December 25, 1918.[12] There was also a Halloween Social in 1917.[13]

Sources:

  • [1] Playground Daily News, April 23, 1981, Okaloosa pioneer dead at age 95
  • [2] The Pensacola Journal, April 22, 1916, New Dye Mine is Prosperity Sign
  • [3] The Pensacola Journal, January 25, 1917, Garniers
  • [4] The Pensacola Journal, April 23, 1917, Camp Walton
  • [5] The Pensacola Journal, October 28, 1917, Camp Walton
  • [6] The Pensacola Journal, November 16, 1917, Camp Walton
  • [7] The Pensacola Journal, October 3, 1920, Garniers
  • [8] Heritage of Okaloosa County Vol. 2
  • [9] The Pensacola Journal, November 28, 1918, Big Shipment of Florida-Made Dye is Received Here
  • [10] The Pensacola Journal, December 6, 1917, Dye Plant is Big Thing Says an Authority
  • [11] The Pensacola Journal, November 18, 1917, Garniers Bayou
  • [12] The Pensacola Journal, January 2, 1919, Garniers Bayou
  • [13] The Pensacola Journal, November 3, 1917, Garniers