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 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 the town was booming and in its heyday in the early 1870s 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 had 1,000 residents at its peak. In 1876, George Franklin Drew was elected as
Governor of Florida. The town started to decline near the turn of the century after its mill burned down in 1898. Though it was quickly rebuilt, the number of pine trees declined. Both rivers flooded and with the onset of the
Great Depression, 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 photos of the mansion before and after its abandonment. The
Hillman Bridge, built in 1925 by the
Federal Aid Project and designed by the RHH Blackwell Company of
East Aurora,
New York, was abandoned and replaced by a new bridge across the river in 1986. The Florida Archives have a photo of a store in Ellaville. Ellaville Park and the Suwannacoochee Spring are in the area. ==See also==