OCTOBER 2, 2020

I’m from Tallahassee and my friend and I are interested in finding spooky swampy places, so when we heard about this ghost town called Ellaville, we found the coordinates to it on a forum and made plans to visit right away. We went to St. Mark’s Lighthouse earlier that day, and as we were walking on the beach, these dragonflies appear out of nowhere and hit the ground between us. There was one green one and one blue one, and they seemed to be fighting over the body of a third shriveled-up one. Normally they’re pretty shy bugs, but they were completely unphased by us, and I was able to get really close and take a picture. It felt like some kind of omen, but neither of us knows much about that sort of thing.

 

 

 

 

 

Later that night we drove out to the coordinates we’d found, and the road changed from highway to barely paved to just straight-up dirt. Passed a railroad crossing that felt like a gateway. Pretty sure we were on private property by that point. Right before where the GPS said to make a turn into dense forest, there was a branch hanging down from the trees overhead that definitely felt like some sort of barrier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The original plan was to get out of the car and wander around, but vibes were way off, and thinking about doing that now makes my stomach flip. I did a three-point turn, careful to not pass the branch, and headed back the way we came. On the drive home, we put Spotify on shuffle, and it kept queuing song will lyrics to do with leaving and not coming back. The next day I looked it up myself, and the ruins of the real Ellaville are in Suwannee River State Park, which is around 30 miles to the east. I still don’t know what we actually went to, and I have no plans of ever returning.

Submitted by Tony