The story
Ellaville was the seat of George Franklin Drew's timber empire — one of the South's largest sawmill complexes, floating virgin cypress and pine down the Suwannee and Withlacoochee. Drew parlayed the fortune into Florida's governorship in 1876; his town held perhaps a thousand people, and his mansion overlooked the river junction.
The old-growth timber was finite and so was Ellaville: milling wound down after 1900, the post office closed in 1942, and Florida's aggressive forest took the rest — the mansion itself burned decades after abandonment. Foundations and cemetery remain around the Suwannee River State Park boundary, under Spanish moss that outlasted the boom.
What remains today
Foundations, wells, and the Drew mansion site near the rivers' confluence; interpretation via Suwannee River State Park across the water.
Questions from the field
- Who founded Ellaville?
- George F. Drew, whose sawmill fortune here carried him to Florida's governorship in 1876 — the town was named for Ella, by most accounts a member of his household.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Ellaville — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Ellaville's permanent record.
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Sources consulted
- — USGS GNIS feature 294754
- — Florida State Parks — Suwannee River SP
- — Suwannee County timber-era records