Group of 14 Stereo views of the Long-Abandoned Towns of Ellaville, New Troy and Columbus, Florida, in the Suwanee River Valley, circa 1870

14 stereo views, mounted on yellow cardstock mounts, no photographer's credit on mount verso, views identified in pencil on versos, in good clean condition.

Rare group of stereo views providing visual documentation of the long-vanished Florida towns of Ellaville, Columbus and New Troy, all located near each other along the Suwanee River. The views have light period pencil notations on their versos identifying each view. There are only a handful of images known to survive of Ellaville, especially from its early days.

Ellaville, Florida is a ghost town located in the Suwanee River State Park in Suwanee County, Florida. Ellaville was formerly located at the juncture of the Suwanee and Withlacoochee Rivers.

Ellaville was founded in 1861 by George Franklin Drew a successful businessman and future governor of Florida. He named the town Ellaville after one of his slaves named Ella. He and Louis Bucki, a Prussian immigrant, built a mill that employed over 500 people and was one of the largest in Florida at the time. The company had 1200 acres near Ellaville and an additional 90,000 acres of timberlands in adjacent areas. Lumberyards and branch offices were established in New York City and Jacksonville. Drew built himself a mansion on the western banks of the Suwanee River.

The Florida Railroad built a line to the town providing direct access to markets for the mill. Soon after the town was booming and in its heyday in the early 1870s, when these images were taken, Ellaville had a train station, two schools, two churches, a steamboat dock, masonic lodge, commissary and a sawmill. Drew's company soon expanded into the manufacture of turpentine, and railroad car building. Drew established his own private railroad company. Drew paid his workers with company scrip in the early 1870s. The town had about a thousand residents at its peak. In 1876 George Franklin Drew was elected Governor of Florida.

Ellaville began to decline near the turn of the century after its mill burned down in 1898. Although the mill was quickly rebuilt, the number of pine trees had declined. Both rivers flooded and with the onset of the Great Depression, there was no future for the town, the post office was finally abandoned in 1942. The Drew mansion was abandoned, vandalized over the years, it burnt to the ground in the 1970s.

The towns of New Troy and Columbus, located along the Suwanee and near Ellaville and "boomed and bust" in similar fashion.

The images include:

1. "Drew and Buckis Steam Saw Mill Ellaville Fla."

2. "View of Lumber Train Ellaville Fla."

3. "View of R.R. Bridge at Columbus Fla."

4. "Capt Edwards Store at New Troy"

5. "View of Back Street in Ellaville Fla."

6. "View of Furnace at Drew and Buckis Mill Ellaville Fla."

7. "Steamer Wawenock at Troy on Suwanee River"

8. "View in the Pine Woods Florida"

9. "Sugar Boiling at Geo. F. Drews Ellaville Fla."

10. "View of Humble Log House in Florida"

11. "Little River Spring and Suwanee River in the distance"

12. "Little River Spring and Church on the Hill Suwanee River"

13. "Dr. Hodges Yacht at Hickory Island"

14. "Engine of Drew and Buckis Saw Mill Ellaville Fla."

https://abandonedfl.com/the-town-of-ellaville/