By Starr Munro
Riverbend News
In the spirit of Halloween, here's a ghost story for small towns everywhere along the Suwannee River's banks to get spooked by. The history behind the birth of a prominent boom town in the 1860's and how it quickly became just another ghost town and essentially died out less than a hundred years later.
On the Western Banks of the Suwannee River, the seemingly fortunate town of Ellaville once stood, and not only stood, but even thrived. Home to two schools, a sawmill, a masonic lodge, two churches, with the most telling features being a steamboat dock and train station; two testaments to how this now abandoned town was once a bustling center of business and activity, with quite a robust population for the era, peaking at 1,000 residents.
In 1861, the same year the American Civil War officially began, George Drew built a mansion alongside the western bank of the Suwannee River, a beautiful piece of architecture that boasted formal gardens as well as success. Originally born in Alton, New Hampshire, Drew built a machine shop in Columbus, Ga., remaking himself into a lucrative businessman before making his way further down South to Suwannee County. He and his partner Louis Bucki built what was to become the largest sawmill in Florida, employing over 500 people. Drew dubbed the area Ellaville, after one of his longtime slaves, Ella. By the 1870's, the town was a textbook definition of a boomtown. Florida Railroad built a line into the town that led directly to the prosperous mill, where a fortune was made in logging and turpentine collection. Eleven mills were erected in all and in 1876, Drew, then one of the richest men in the state, was elected as Florida's 12th Governor, the very first chosen after the Reconstruction Era. After leaving office in 1881 and returning to his lumber business, he moved to Jacksonville where he died in 1900 after serving as the city's first President of the Trade Board.
Drew's death came shortly after an ominous tragedy to the town of Ellaville and looking back today, it seems to have been only the very beginning of the end for them. Their mighty mill that gave them the lives the citizens had for decades, burned to the ground in 1898 and although it was rebuilt quickly, the pine trees in the area were simply not as plentiful as they had been nearly 40 years earlier. Although trees are a renewable resource, the farming of them we practice today wasn't as popular then and they suffered for it. The disaster of their mill burning down and their lumber yield not being as bountiful as it had been in the past was a terrible time indeed, but that alone did not lead to the town's demise; it was series of misfortunate events still to come that essentially wiped Ellaville off the map and created yet another American ghost town sitting in obscurity today.
The year of 1928 is a year in Florida that any history book about the state’s past would be incomplete without mentioning. The summer of that year was a disastrous season for people, crops and livestock all across the state, with multiple hurricanes devastating communities everywhere. The Great Okeechobee Flood has gone down in history as one of the most devastating natural disasters to happen to the Sunshine State. The hurricane that spawned the flooding is listed as the third most lethal hurricane in recorded history, with an estimated 2,500 Floridians perishing after the category 4 storm hit. The areas around the Suwannee River took a terrible blow that stormy season as well, and a month before that notorious flooding of Lake Okeechobee would occur, the town of Ellaville was completely flooded by August 14. The Suwannee and Withlacoochee rivers raised over a 100 feet above their normal levels, converged and spilled over, water finding its way into the community where it wreaked havoc on local businesses and people. The train station flooded and people took to their boats to check up on neighbors and kin. The town had to deal with yet another adversity stacked against them. Maybe the shocking list of causalities that followed in September from the historic flood overshadowed the woes of the people who lived along the great Suwannee River during that time, because you won't find Ellaville on that list, but it was one more casualty deserving to be listed to 1928's battle of man versus nature, because it was one more reason the community would eventually perish.
After the flooding, Ellaville didn't have much time to re-cooperate before another devastation hit the community. Only, this one didn't affect just them, but the entire nation. The Great Depression reached the town like it did for the rest of the country. Rich or poor, it made no difference; a struggle ensued that many people succumbed to, changing their lives forever. Rural communities like Ellaville that were already trying to hold on for dear life, grit their teeth and didn't let go easily, but after the two world wars that followed, the boomtown finally died out and became a ghost of a town, with the final nail in the coffin being the closing of the post office in 1942. Ellaville held on for as long as they could, however, their story is one of hope, loss, dreams and devastation. It's good practice to remember how precious community is and also how fragile it can be.
With more historic flooding happening each year not just in Florida but all over the country and financial crisis always a looming threat, a ghost story like the town of Ellaville that once was, is the true American horror story. But this is why knowing local history can be seen as not only as an interest or hobby, but as a tool that can supply a different lesson for issues we're not immune to, today. Ellaville is much more than what it currently looks like, which isn't much. There's an old bridge, an empty school house, as well as some rusty machinery left behind from the mill that once was. And of course the remnants of an old river and refueling store, a town staple that most people around the Suwannee are familiar with. At the right time of year, the foundation of the Drew mansion can be seen when some of the vegetation that grows over it is killed off by the winter freeze. A structure of pride for the locals was vandalized for decades after being abandoned mostly due to flood damages and burned to the ground in the 1970s. The only thing flourishing in the boomtown of Ellaville today are the vines growing over the few remaining buildings, returning the lumber that built up the city slowly back to nature.