Ellaville, ghost Town in Florida, United States

Ellaville is a ghost town at the confluence of the Suwannee and Withlacoochee rivers in Madison County, Florida. Its site holds the Hillman Bridge, a weathered reddish-brown steel through-truss built in 1925 with an open grated deck, abandoned in 1986 when a new bridge replaced it; a white sign on the span reads "TAR ROAD CLOSED" under layers of graffiti.

Ellaville was founded in 1861 by George Franklin Drew, a businessman and later Florida governor, who built a mansion on the west bank of the Suwannee River and named the town for his slave Ella. He and Louis Bucki built a mill employing over 500 people, served by a Florida Railroad line. The town peaked at 1,000 residents in the early 1870s; after the mill burned in 1898, floods and the Great Depression ended it, and the post office closed in 1942.

Ellaville was named for Ella, a slave of founder George Franklin Drew, who built his mansion on the Suwannee River's western bank in 1861. In its early 1870s heyday the town had a train station, two schools, two churches, a steamboat dock, a Masonic lodge, a commissary and a sawmill, and its mill employed over 500 people.

The site is overgrown and rough, so wear sturdy shoes and be ready for uneven ground. There are no facilities or regular services on site, so plan ahead for anything you might need.

The Hillman Bridge, built in 1925 under a Federal Aid Project and designed by the RHH Blackwell Company of East Aurora, New York, carried traffic until a new bridge replaced it in 1986. It now stands abandoned, its faded reddish-brown steel truss and grated deck still spanning the river.