The origins of juke joints may be the community rooms that were occasionally built on plantations to provide a place for Black people to socialize during slavery. This practice spread to the work camps such as sawmills, turpentine camps and lumber companies in the early twentieth century, which built barrel-houses and chock-houses to be used for drinking and gambling. Although uncommon in populated areas, such places were often seen as necessary to attract workers to sparsely populated areas lacking bars and other social outlets. As well, much like "on-base" officer's clubs, such "Company"-owned joints allowed managers to keep an eye on their underlings; it also ensured that the employees' pay was coming back to the Company. Constructed simply like a field hand's "shotgun"-style dwelling, these may have been the first juke joints.