In the early 20th century, turpentine camps were established in Nokomis and Venice, where typically black laborers cut a V-shaped “cat face” in pine bark so gum would ooze into clay or tin pots nailed to the trees, after which others collected the gum and a stiller heated it in a wood-fired still to produce distilled turpentine and resin residue for shipment by rail to distant markets; in Nokomis, R. S. Hall and W. O. Harrison leased land west of the railroad for a turpentine operation that used convict labor until the leasing of state convicts for labor was made illegal in 1919. In the 1920s, as part of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers' development of the current City of Venice, the Venice Ice Company operated next to the railroad in Nokomis, producing 20 tons of ice a day for the southern part of the county at a time when homes and businesses lacked electric refrigeration and daily ice deliveries kept food cold in iceboxes.