If you've ever driven on a crappy limerock back road in The Sunshine State, direct your irritation here. That's because limerock is a waste product of phosphate mining, and phosphate mining is the third largest industry in Florida. The industry makes money by having its waste mixed into asphalt as a paving material.
Phosphate was discovered in Florida in 1889 by Albertus Vogt, while he was sinking a well. Its principal use was as a fertilizer. For a few years Dunnellon was a boomtown of phosphate surface strip mines. But by 1900 the mines were played out and, as the plaque notes, "the center of production has shifted elsewhere."
The self-proclaimed "Phosphate Center of the World" is now in Mulberry, about three hours south of here.
