Ellaville | |
|---|---|
| Country |  United States |
| State |  Florida |
| County | Suwannee County |
| Founded by | George Franklin Drew |
| Named for | One of George Franklin Drew's slaves Ella. |
| GNIS feature ID | 294754 [1] |
Ellaville, Florida is a ghost town in Florida located in the Suwannee River State Park in Suwannee County, Florida, United States. Ellaville was located at the merging place of the Suwannee River and Withlacoochee River.
Ellaville was founded in 1861 by George Franklin Drew a successful businessman and future governor of Florida. Franklin decided to build a mansion on the western banks of Suwannee River. The town was named Ellaville for honoring one of his slaves named Ella. He and Louis Bucki then built a mill that employed over 500 people and was one of the largest in Florida at the time.
The Florida Railroad built a line to the town that had direct access to the mill. Soon after that the town was booming. The town was in its heyday in the early 1870s and had a train station, two schools, two churches, a steamboat dock, masonic lodge, commissary and a sawmill. It was also involved in turpentine, railroad car building and logging.
The town even had 1,000 residents in its peak. Later on in 1876, Franklin the town's founder went on to be governor. The town then soon started to decline near the turn of the century starting when its mill burned down in 1898 but was rebuilt quickly. Though there was no longer a significant number of pine still left. Both of the rivers soon had flooded and with the onset of the Great Depression showed there was no future for the town and the post office closed in 1942. The Drew Mansion was then abandoned and vandalized for many years until it was burnt to the ground in the 1970s. The Florida Archives have a photos of the mansion before [2] and after its abandonment. [3]
In 1986, the Hillman Bridge built in 1925 by the Federal Aid Project and designed by the RHH Blackwell Company of East Aurora, New York [4] was abandoned and replaced by a new bridge across the river. [5] [6]
Suwannee County is a county located in the north central portion of the state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 43,474, up from 41,551 in 2010. Its county seat is Live Oak. Suwannee County was a dry county until August 2011, when the sale of alcoholic beverages became legal in the county.
Tift County is a county located in the south central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 41,344. The county seat is Tifton.
Lowndes County is a county located in the south-central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 118,251. The county seat is Valdosta. The county was created December 23, 1825.
Live Oak is a city and the county seat of Suwannee County, Florida, United States. The city is midway between Tallahassee and Jacksonville. As of 2020, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau was 6,735.
The Suwannee River is a river that runs through south Georgia southward into Florida in the Southern United States. It is a wild blackwater river, about 246 miles (396 km) long. The Suwannee River is the site of the prehistoric Suwanee Straits that separated the Florida peninsula from the Florida panhandle and the rest of the continent.
George Franklin Drew was the 12th Governor of the U.S. state of Florida.
Muscogee is a ghost town located twenty miles northwest of Pensacola, Florida, United States, in Escambia County, along the Perdido River. Named after the Muscogee Lumber Company, formed by Georgia lumber men, the town was founded in 1857 by a group of lumbermen to harvest timber from the surrounding pine forests. They and the following company clearcut the timber, and once the forests were gone, lumbering ended in this area.
Cahaba, also spelled Cahawba, was the first permanent state capital of Alabama from 1820 to 1825. It was the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama until 1866. Located at the confluence of the Alabama and Cahaba rivers, the town endured regular seasonal flooding.
Prospect Place, also known as The Trinway Mansion and Prospect Place Estate, is a 29-room mansion built by abolitionist George Willison Adams in Trinway, Ohio, just north of Dresden in 1856. Today, it is the home of the non-profit G. W. Adams Educational Center, Inc. The mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Ohio Underground Railroad Association's list of Underground Railroad sites.
Waukeenah is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 259, down from 272 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Tallahassee, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Waukeenah Academy was a school in the area. Samuel Pasco was its principal. It did not survive the Civil War era. The Florida Archives have a photos of its teachers and pupils.
City of Hawkinsville was a paddle steamer constructed in Georgia in 1886. Sold in 1900 to a Tampa, Florida company, it delivered cargo and lumber along the Suwannee River. Eventually rendered obsolete by the advent of railroads in the region, it was abandoned in the middle of the Suwannee in 1922.
The Big Bend of Florida, United States, is an informally named geographic region of North Florida where the Florida Panhandle transitions to the Florida Peninsula south and east of Tallahassee. The region is known for its vast woodlands and marshlands and its low population density relative to much of the state. The area is home to the largest single spring in the United States, the Alapaha Rise, and the longest surveyed underwater cave in the United States, the 32-mile (51 km) Wakulla-Leon Sinks cave system.
Atsena Otie Key is a barrier island and ghost town one-half mile offshore of Cedar Key, Florida. Atsena Otie was the original site of the town of Cedar Key, and in the present day includes a walking trail, swimming area, and ruins of the Eberhard Faber mill. The property is part of the Cedar Key National Wildlife Refuge and is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
U.S. Route 129 (US 129) in Florida is a north–south United States Highway. It runs 88 miles (142 km) from Chiefland north to the Georgia State Line in Levy, Gilchrist, Suwannee, and Hamilton Counties.
Hosford is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Liberty County, Florida, United States. Its population was 629 as of the 2020 Census. It is located at the junction of State Road 20 and State Road 65. Hosford has a post office with ZIP Code 32334. It has one school, Hosford Elementary School and Jr. High School, and a public library, Jimmy Weaver Memorial Public Library. Hosford is the site of a Georgia-Pacific mill.
The Nature Coast State Trail (NCST) is a 31.7-mile long segment of Florida's Statewide System of Greenways and Trails System built along abandoned railroad tracks, and designated by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a National Recreation Trail. It has two primary sections following unused rail lines that were originally built by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. It includes historic sites such as a 1902 train trestle bridge over the Suwannee River near Old Town and train stations in Trenton, Cross City, and Chiefland. At Wilcox Junction abandoned rail tracks cross and connect with several communities. The trail is available to hikers, cyclists, and horse riders.
Willow is a ghost town in Manatee County, Florida, United States.
Croom, also known by its previous name of Pemberton Ferry, is a ghost town in Central Florida near Brooksville, Florida, and Ridge Manor, Florida. A rail line came to Pemberton Ferry in 1884. It was a rail stop by the Withlacoochee River just north of where the I-75 bridge over Croom-Rital Road and Withlacoochee State Trail is today.
Wright's Bridge is a historic covered bridge in Newport, New Hampshire. Originally built in 1906 to carry the Boston and Maine Railroad across the Sugar River, it now carries the multi-use Sugar River Trail. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
Samuel B. McLin served as Florida Secretary of State from 1873 until 1877, and as a justice of the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court from 1877 to 1878. He was involved in Florida's delegate counting feud during the disputed 1876 United States presidential election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden.
Municipalities and communities of Suwannee County, Florida, United States | ||
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| Unincorporated communities | ||