Turpentine History Display at Coffee State Park

In our wanderings through north Florida, we have come across many pieces of Herty cups, the clay pots that were used to collect the pine resin that drained from the catfaces (the v-shaped cuts in the bark) that was distilled into turpentine. This was big business in our part of the South for generations.

At Coffee State Park in Georgia, there was a rather extensive display of historical equipment used in this industry. I was impressed with this one that shows the various collection methods:

Here is a copy of a postcard from 1936, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Not displayed here but inside a cabin was a glass Herty cup. We had neither seen nor heard of such.

This 1906 picture from the Florida Memory collection of historical photographs and sound recordings of interviews, shows people near the town of Eastpoint in an area that had been terpentined. (The photo is credited to the "Brown Family."

This one was taken a few months earlier of a booming distillery in Chipley. No credit was listed on the site.

There are photos of the industry in the collection that predate these.