Sabine Pass Research Articles

Resources and Research Affecting Development of the South

ALTHOUGH THE SOUTH is traditionally an agricultural area, some American pioneering manufacturing operations were carried out in southern states. The first ships in the New World were built at Apalachicola, Florida, by Panfilo de Narvaez in 1527. They were tarred with pitch which a Greek chemist, known as Don Teodoro, made from pine rosin, the first recorded chemical operation in this country. Fernando de Soto built 7 brigs in the Spanish settlement on Tampa Bay in 1540 for his expedition leading to the discovery of the Mississippi River. Three years later, ships carrying the survivors of this expedition to Mexico anchored on the Gulf Coast of Texas near Sabine Pass to collect the crude oil scum floating on the water to caulk their vessels. This is the first known use of a petroleum product in North America, 64 years before the English colonists stepped ashore at Jamestown. Since then the South has loomed as the home of industrial production, where corporations with listed securities have sprung into being. Some of the textile industry, long entrenched in the New England States, started to move South. The great breakthrough for industry came during the late war when the Government's need for increased production capacity poured in fertilizing streams of money.