McCranie's Turpentine Still, Historical turpentine distillery in Willacoochee, United States.
McCranie's Turpentine Still is a turpentine still west of Willacoochee, Georgia, built in 1936 on designs and methods from earlier eras. It used fire distillation, not steam, to process pine resin, and it remains largely intact. The site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The McCranie family had worked in turpentine before 1900, and this still was built in 1936 using designs and methods from earlier eras. Three McCranie brothers ran it until 1942, when the two elder brothers went to war. The shift from fire distillation to steam distillation, plus the wartime labor shortage, closed it; the structure remains largely intact.
The still was run by three McCranie brothers, whose family had worked in the turpentine industry before 1900 and continued for generations. The 1936 structure was built from designs and methods of earlier eras, so the site records how a family trade was passed down and reproduced in Atkinson County.
The site is located west of Willacoochee along U.S. Route 82, making it accessible by car. The original structure and equipment are visible and help visitors understand how the facility operated during its active years.
The still was built in 1936 using designs and methods from earlier eras, and it stopped operating in 1942 when the two elder McCranie brothers went to war. It remains largely intact, and in 2026 it was added to the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation's list of "Places in Peril" because of damage from Hurricane Helene.
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