A once-thriving Central Florida town that’s been abandoned and largely forgotten for the past century will come back to life this weekend at an event highlighting Lake County’s history.
The 12th East Lake County Heritage Festival lands at the 14,000-acre Rock Springs Run State Reserve on Saturday and Sunday, highlighting the town of Ethel while celebrating America’s 250th birthday. The family-friendly event features vendors, arts and crafts, reenactors, a guided tram tour, live music, entertainment, children’s games and guided walks on the 1.5-mile Historic Ethel Trail.
At its peak in the late 1800s, Ethel was home to nearly 300 residents with a post office, a general store, a train station, a cemetery and a one-room schoolhouse. Many settled in the town following the Homestead Act, which granted citizens 160 acres if they lived on their plot and cultivated the land.
Don Philpott, president of the Wekiva Wilderness Trust, oversaw the research behind the Historic Ethel Trail, which helps visitors retrace Central Florida history at Rock Springs Run State Reserve on Nov. 30, 2023. He even co-authored a book on the subject. (Patrick Connolly/Orlando Sentinel)
The history of this once-forgotten town was first uncovered by Tony Moore, a retired land surveyor and park volunteer, who spotted a tombstone while walking through waist-high grass. That headstone, curiously, belonged to a man with the same last name as his and sparked the unraveling of historical mysteries surrounding this town.
Don Philpott, the president of the Wekiva Wilderness Trust, who was recently recognized for dedicating 35,000 hours of volunteering with the Florida Park Service, has spent the last 15 years researching the history of Ethel and the surrounding area.
William S. Delk, a man of English descent, bought 3,000 acres of land near modern-day Kelly Park in 1854 and started a plantation growing cotton, rice, sugar cane and corn. He worked the land with his son William, two indentured white laborers and 19 slaves.
Though his neighbors (and even his son) were loyal to the Confederacy, Delk was a Union supporter and freed his slaves after a brush with Confederate troops. Delk’s former slaves, Anthony Frazier and his half-brother Joseph Robards, served in the Union Army before returning to buy land near Rock Springs through the Homestead Act.
Although no known photographs exist of Anthony Frazier, artist Gary Schermerhorn created a drawing based on photographs of Frazier’s adult sons. (Courtesy Wekiva Wilderness Trust)
Frazier’s wife, Mary, served as a midwife and delivered many of the town’s babies, while he went on to become a commissioner for roads in Orange County in 1880, tasked with building a road between Orlando and Rock Springs.
Transportation and living were much harder at the time, as a trip from Ethel to Sanford would take a day each way by ox cart. In 1887, the railway came, connecting Tavares and Sanford with Ethel in the middle. Severe freezes in the mid-1890s resulted in a decline in the citrus industry, causing residents to drift away and leaving only 10 families living in Ethel in 1910.
As for the gravestone found by Tony Moore, it belonged to Luke Moore, who did not live in Ethel but was a rail passenger who died on the train, then was discovered by the conductor. There were previously more headstones before a 1940s landowner had many of them hauled away into the swamp.
Ethel resident Finley B. Click at his cabin in the late 1800s. (Courtesy Wekiva Wilderness Trust)
Since Philpott compiled the history of Ethel into a free e-book and a 256-page physical edition, first published in 2023, the book has grown to nearly 442 pages. The new edition will be available at the festival.
Some of the new information came from tracing the people who lived in Ethel, as Philpott has now traced about 120 families through land deeds.
“We have spoken to about 20 of those in great detail and got photographs,” he said. “The new book is different because it talks way more about what daily life was like because of the letter that we’ve got.”
Emery Webb, 5, shows children’s crafts in period dress in the historic town of Ethel at Rock Springs Run State Reserve in Sorrento on March 12. (Patrick Connolly/Orlando Sentinel)
One of the new features of this year’s festival is a replica of a 10-by-12-foot log cabin meant to represent the home of Ethel resident Finley Click, who lived in the area in the late 1880s.
Reenactor Daniel Sharkey hopes festival visitors can learn more about the hard lives of Florida’s pioneers.
“We’re talking about the history of pioneering in Florida from the 1800s into the early 1900s and the life and struggle of pioneering,” he said. “Florida really was an uncharted territory, at least from a European perspective.”
Daniel Sharkey and Emery Webb, 5, showcase their period clothing as reenactors in front of a replica 1880s cabin in the historic town of Ethel at Rock Springs Run State Reserve in Sorrento on March 12. (Patrick Connolly/Orlando Sentinel)
During this weekend’s event, modern-day visitors can step into a life that was both more difficult and simpler when the ghost town of Ethel comes back to life.
Find me @PConnPie on Instagram or send me an email: pconnolly@orlandosentinel.com. Stay up to date with our latest travel, arts and events coverage by subscribing to our newsletters at orlandosentinel.com/newsletters.
If you go
The 12th East Lake County Heritage Festival is from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. March 21-22 at 31515 Wekiva River Road in Sorrento. The family-friendly event is free. More information: wwt-cso.com