A once-thriving Central Florida town, abandoned and largely forgotten over the past century, will come to life this weekend with an event showcasing Lake County’s history.
The 12th Annual East Lake County Heritage Festival will be held Saturday and Sunday at the 14,000-acre Rock Springs Run State Preserve, highlighting the town of Ethel while celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. This family-friendly event includes vendors, arts and crafts, entertainment, guided tram tours, live music, entertainment, games for kids, and guided walks along the 2.5-mile historic Ethel Trail.
At its peak in the late 1800s, Ethel had a post office, general store, train station, cemetery, one-room schoolhouse, and home to nearly 300 residents. Many settled in towns under the Homestead Act, which gave citizens 160 acres of land if they lived on their own property and cultivated the land.
The town’s once forgotten history has been brought to light for the first time by former land surveyor and park volunteer Tony Moore. He found the tombstone while walking through waist-high grass. Oddly enough, the tombstone belonged to a man with the same last name as him, which led to the unraveling of a historical mystery surrounding the town.
Wekiva Conservancy President Don Philpott, who was recently recognized for 35,000 volunteer hours with the Florida Parks Department, has spent the past 15 years researching the history of Ethel and the surrounding area.
William S. Delk, of English descent, purchased 3,000 acres near present-day Kelly Park in 1854 and began a plantation growing cotton, rice, sugar cane, and corn. He worked the land with his son William, two indentured white laborers, and 19 slaves.
Although his neighbors (and even his son) were loyal to the Confederacy, Delk was a Union supporter and freed his slaves after a conflict with the Confederates. Delk’s former slaves, Anthony Frazier and his half-brother Joseph Robards, served in the Union Army and then returned to purchase land near Rock Springs under the Homestead Act.
Frazier’s wife, Mary, worked as a midwife and delivered many of the town’s babies, while Frazier became Orange County’s road commissioner in 1880, tasked with building the road between Orlando and Rock Springs.
Transportation and life were much more difficult at the time, as it took one day each way to get from Ethel to Sanford by oxcart. In 1887, a railroad opened connecting Tavares and Sanford, with Ethel in the middle. A deep freeze in the mid-1890s led to the decline of the citrus industry and the exodus of residents, and by 1910 only 10 families were living in Ethel.
The gravestone that Tony Moore found belonged to Luke Moore. Luke Moore did not live in Ethel, but was a railway passenger who died on the train and was later found by the conductor. There used to be many more gravestones until the 1940s when landowners removed many of them to the swamp.
Since Philpott compiled Ethel’s history into a free e-book and a 256-page physical version, first published in 2023, the book has grown to nearly 442 pages. The new book will be sold at the festival.
Some of the new information came from tracing the people who lived in Ethel, as Mr Philpott is currently tracing around 120 families through land deeds.
“We spoke to about 20 of them in detail and also took photos,” he said. “The new book is different because it tells us more about what everyday life was like, thanks to the letters we received.”
One of the new highlights of this year’s festival is a 10-by-12-foot log cabin replica intended to represent the home of Ethel resident Finley Crick, who lived in the area in the late 1880s.
Re-enactor Daniel Sharkey hopes festival-goers will learn more about the harsh lives of Florida’s pioneers.
“We’re talking about the history of Florida’s settlement from the 1800s to the early 1900s, and the lives and struggles of the pioneers,” he said. “Florida was really uncharted territory, at least from a European perspective.”
Modern-day visitors will be able to step into a harder and simpler life when the ghost town of Ethel comes back to life during this weekend’s event.
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If you go
The 12th Annual East Lake County Heritage Festival will be held March 21 and 22 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 31515 Wekiva River Road in Sorrento. The family-friendly event is free. More information: wwt-cso.com
