Long before the American Revolution, longleaf pine (the source of heart pine) and bald cypress dominated the landscape in the Southern USA. Once the largest continuous forest on the North American continent, this ecosystem ran along the coastal plain from Virginia to eastern Texas.
In the late 19th century loggers cut these centuries-old trees for use in construction. They would float the logs downstream to the nearest mill, but many of the heaviest logs sank to the riverbed and became what is known as deadhead logs.

At a time when the South was blanketed by tens of millions of acres of forest, it wasn’t much of a loss. Where there was once approximately 90 million acres, less than 10,000 acres of old-growth heart pine remain today, most of it protected, and the submerged logs have found new value.

Although the outside decomposes after being underwater for more than a century, resin keeps the inside perfectly preserved. Prized for flooring and paneling, this interior wood is known as “heart pine” and “heart cypress.”
Compared to other wood flooring options, the recovered wood is stronger, healthier, prettier and takes on a much richer color and tone over time. Best of all, it is 100% heart, which makes it harder and more stable than the young woods used for new hardwood flooring today. This antique heart pine is at least 200 years old and the heart cypress is at least 500 years old, resulting in an extraordinary product full of luster and life.

The growing popularity of antique wood has more would-be entrepreneurs flocking to the business, but the original one is George Goodwin, whom back in the 1970s, acquired some longleaf pine logs a fisherman friend recovered from the Suwannee River and the rest is history. He realized the rarity and historical significance of this treasure and opened Goodwin Heart Pine Company in 1976.
Since then, his company is one of the most highly respected manufacturers of antique heart pine and heart cypress in the world. Installed in homes and businesses throughout the country, Goodwin’s river-recovered wood has also been featured in publications and on television shows.

Goodwin spent his entire savings of about $100,000 to purchase 20 acres of land in Micanopy, Fla., and move an old sawmill to the property, where he and his wife, Carol, live and work. They pay divers $2 to $3 per board foot of wood in the logs recovered from Florida riverbeds, then clean up the logs and mill them into flooring that sells for $5 to $20 a foot. They estimate that the demand for antique wood has risen tenfold in the past decade, thanks to the housing boom and changing tastes. That has turned the company into a multi-million dollars business. To find out more about this couple, visit their website at: http://www.heartpine.com/.

To learn more about these "rediscovered" forests,which are being logged primarily in North and South America, Russia, and Malaysia,estimated at about 200 million trees and representing a global supply worth about $40 billion, check this in depth article.