In the early 1900s, this area’s long leaf and slash pine forests supported several small turpentine and timber communities, including Sumica, about two miles south of this location. Sumica took its name from the French company Société Universelle des Mines, Industrie, Commerce et Agriculture, which built the town’s sawmill and turpentine plant. A post office opened there on March 19, 1917, and the town later grew to include about 50 houses, a commissary, church, and school. In December 1917, the Seaboard Airline Railway completed the Kissimmee River Railway branch line to connect Sumica with the turpentine communities of Walinwa on Lake Weohyakapka and Nalaca in Highlands County. By 1922, Sumica’s sawmill had extended 4 miles of logging rails into the surrounding woodlands and was producing 35,000 feet of lumber per day. After the region’s timber was depleted, the post office closed in June 1927 and Sumica was abandoned, leaving only foundations from the former sawmill and residences.