HISTORY & HERITAGE
Arcadia Mill Archaeological Site
Santa Rosa County · Panhandle & Emerald Coast
The excavated remains of Florida's earliest water-powered industrial complex, at Milton, with a boardwalk over the foundations.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Arcadia Mill was the largest water-powered industrial complex in early nineteenth century Florida, a sawmill and later a cotton textile mill driven by a millrace off Pond Creek. It ran from 1817 until the 1850s. A large part of the work was done by enslaved people, and the site does not skirt around that; their lives are part of what the exhibits cover. The University of West Florida Historic Trust runs the place at 5709 Mill Pond Lane in Milton, and it is an active archaeological site as well as a museum. An elevated boardwalk of about three quarters of a mile, wheelchair accessible, runs over the foundations with interpretive signs along it, and roughly a mile of nature trail loops through the woods. The visitor center holds a thousand square feet of exhibits and a children's area called Meet Me at the Mill. A Discovery Pavilion shows working replicas of the water-powered machinery
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