The Manasota Land and Timber Company bought more than 80,000 acres and the Gulf Coast Railway Company from the Southern Investment Company of Baltimore, Maryland, in 1917 on land south of the Palmer properties in Venice along Lemon Bay. Because the tract was estimated to hold a quarter million feet of long-leaf yellow pine timber, the company pursued construction of a timber mill, and in 1918 transferred 250 acres to the Manasota Lumber Company for a sawmill and company town on both sides of today’s SR 776 between 1 and 1 1/2 miles south of US 41. Herman C. Kluge supervised construction of a four-story coal-fired sawmill, which was in full operation by 1919 and at its busiest employed an estimated 1500 workers. Kluge also oversaw narrow gauge railroad tracks through the woods, where steam engines hauled flat cars of logs to the mill, and finished lumber went by the Gulf Coast Railway to Venice for transfer to the Seaboard Air Line Railway for shipment north. Around the mill stood a company town with substantial houses for supervisory personnel and other housing, including larger dormitories for single men, for the predominately black workers. A commissary, operated for a time by C.G. Strohmyer and then Floyd Zeigler, supplied staple foods, ice, and fresh meat from cattle and chickens kept in the area, while a large frame building served as a dining hall, recreation center, movie theater, place for religious services, and site for elementary school classes. After bootlegged liquor contributed to fights among workers, the company fenced the mill compound and barred entry or exit after 9 p.m. except for those taking the train to Sarasota on Saturday night. In 1922 the Manasota Lumber Company became the Woodmere Lumber Company and the town became known as Woodmere. By 1923 much of the area’s timber had been cut, lumber production declined, machinery was sold or moved, and some of the better houses were relocated to Siesta and Casey Keys, Englewood, and Venice. A fire destroyed the mill in 1930, and little remains of the once-vibrant company town.