Elliot Sugar Plantation Ruins

Archeological ruins of the Elliot Plantation sugar factory are revealed through the oak hammock on NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 2008. The sugar factory structure, or sugar train, was built from fieldstone and is where sugar cane juice would be boiled during processing in graduated copper kettles until the liquid reduced into a thick syrup. The ruins of Elliot Plantation date from the 1760s and represent the largest, earliest, and southernmost British period sugar plantation in the U.S., as well as one of the most intact and best examples of a completely preserved enslaved landscape. In interagency cooperation between the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and NASA, and with the assistance of volunteers from the Indian River Anthropological Society, and historic preservation offices of Brevard and Volusia counties, approximately 200 shovel tests and 20 excavation units were completed in three areas of the plantation complex from 2008 to 2009.

Archeological ruins of the Elliot Plantation sugar factory are revealed through the oak hammock on NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 2008. The sugar factory structure, or sugar train, was built from fieldstone and is where sugar cane juice would be boiled during processing in graduated copper kettles until the liquid reduced into a thick syrup. The ruins of Elliot Plantation date from the 1760s and represent the largest, earliest, and southernmost British period sugar plantation in the U.S., as well as one of the most intact and best examples of a completely preserved enslaved landscape. In interagency cooperation between the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and NASA, and with the assistance of volunteers from the Indian River Anthropological Society, and historic preservation offices of Brevard and Volusia counties, approximately 200 shovel tests and 20 excavation units were completed in three areas of the plantation complex from 2008 to 2009.

Location KSC