They are a significant example of tabby concrete architecture and represent an industrial component of southeastern plantation agriculture.

John Houstoun McIntosh began planting in Camden County, Georgia after the War of 1812, when he established a permanent residence at Mariana Plantation on the St. Marys River.

At that time in the Georgia lowcountry large-scale planting focused on rice, and comparatively sugar required "a different growing regimen, but not a different kind of plantation.

The enslaved people cut the cane, stripped the leaves, and placed it on flat carts which hauled it to the mills.

Horizontal mills were a relatively new innovation in sugar production in the 1820s, and McIntosh's was purchased from the West Point Foundry in New York.

The middle room had an earthen instead of wooden floor due to the high temperatures and open flame used to boil the syrup.

Both the sugar crystals and molasses were salable goods and the bagasse could be dried and used to fuel the boiling room or used for animal feed.