Naval stores is a collective term for products manufactured from the resin of pine trees. The industry began by providing pine tar and pitch for waterproofing the rigging and hulls of wooden ships. Naval stores was the first industry in the United States.

The resin was collected by chopping cavities into the trees. Since this method killed the trees, forests along the eastern seaboard were depleted. By the 1880s, the industry had moved to the South--Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. The method of resin collection changed and the main product became turpentine.

The resin was collected by removing the bark, cutting 'cat faces' into the trunk. An axe was driven into the wood and half of a metal strip inserted into the slash as the axe was removed. The process was repeated so the metal strip formed a 'V'. A nail driven into the wood held the rosin pot. The resin would seep from the slash, flow along the metal strip, and collect in the rosin pot.

Turpentine was produced by heating the pine resin. The solid residue left was rosin; the vapors given off were distilled into turpentine. Turpentine was used for everything from paint thinner and roofing cement to soap, candy, medicines, and insecticides.

The turpentine industry was a new form of slavery, the mercantile system. Turpentine camps were set up around the distilleries. Workers were blacks or state prisoners. Pay was in the form of company tokens to be spent only at company stores and never enough to cover a worker's needs.

State laws prevented any employee from leaving a job until all debts to the company were paid. The longer an employee worked for the company, the deeper the debt. Prisoners were leased; the wardens were paid.

Woodsriders supervised the resin collection and served out the company 'justice'. Anyone caught leaving a turpentine camp was beaten and returned. Attempting to leave a second time often ended with a bullet.

The turpentine industry inadvertently gave rise to the jook joints. These were 'profane places', set back in the pine woods; little more than a roof, discarded furniture, moonshine, and music. The turpentine industry folded and most jooks closed during World War II. But bits of the jook survive--the jukebox was named for these joints, but long before that, the jook was where workers went to sing the blues.