The following contains excerpts from a Jan. 20, 2019, article in the News-Press entitled “Fort Myers art center’s roots were run of the mill” by Cynthia Williams. Read the full story at the link provided.
“Three [railway] carloads of materials for the new sawmill above the water tank at Samville were moved over the new spur this morning. There will be boarding houses, residences, mill building, stables and office and the name of the new town will be ‘Slater.’” — Fort Myers Press, “Across the River Building News,” May 31, 1924
The Slater lumber mill, across the river in New Prospect (North Fort Myers), was to become the largest pine milling operation in Florida. For 19 years, the smoke from its three, 150-foot-high smokestacks seemed elemental to the landscape of Lee County. In 1944, however, having consumed to the last wood chip every yellow pine its owners had to feed it, the great engines driving the machinery of the mill shut down…