About 200 yards below where the Withlacoochee River empties into the Suwanee lies the remains of the small town of Ellaville. This was once a thriving sawmill and manufacturing center owned by George Franklin Drew, Florida's governor from 1877 to 1881. Very little evidence of the Drew home or the sawmill remains, but the place is still significant for another reason.

Three bridges cross the Suwanee River within sight of one another at this point. One carries the railroad, one carries U.S. 90, and one lies defunct, open only to foot traffic. This bridge, the Hillman Bridge, has perhaps the most interesting story of the three, because of the minor brouhaha that broke out over its name when it was first built in 1926.

Hillman Bridge over the Suwanee River at Ellaville, 1927

The bridge was constructed during one of Florida's biggest highway construction booms. By the 1920s, the concept of state-sponsored highway systems had caught on fully, and roads were snaking their way through every part of the region. The Old Spanish Trail, which roughly corresponded with the route of U.S. Highway 90 through North Florida, was quickly becoming a major east-west corridor. Road construction begets bridge construction, hence the need for a new bridge at the point where the Old Spanish Trail/U.S. 90 crossed the Suwanee between Madison and Suwanee counties.

During construction, the bridge was known as the "Hillman Bridge," after Captain W.J. Hillman of Live Oak, a member of the State Road Department who had helped push for the appropriation to build the structure. A few months before the bridge was opened to the public, however, the State Chamber of Commerce took issue with the idea of naming it after Hillman permanently. Chamber officials argued that the state ought to take advantage of the Suwanee River's power as a popular symbol of Florida and name the bridge either after the river itself, or after Stephen Foster. Foster, of course, had immortalized the Suwanee in his song "Old Folks at Home." Naming the bridge for Hillman or Ellaville, the Chamber argued, would be about as distinctive to the average tourist as if the state named it "Bridge #1313."

A group of motorists in Live Oak. Captain W.J. Hillman is in the white Cadillac at right, ca. 1920s

The Chamber's concerns opened up a statewide press discussion of the subject. Some took the Chamber's side, agreeing that Florida would benefit from making use of the Suwanee's name recognition qualities. The Evening Independent played devil's advocate, noting that another newspaper had spelled "Suwanee" two different ways in the same article. If the press could misspell it, the editor argued, so could tourists, and that might be counterproductive. Another group suggested the inscription over the bridge ought to pertain somehow to the supposed translation of the name "Suwanee," which was believed to be "Water Beloved of the Sun God."

The Hillman Bridge just over a year after it was completed. The swollen waters of the Suwanee River rush past below, 1928

When the bridge was officially dedicated in 1927, the Hillman name stuck. For added name recognition, the State Road Department prominently displayed a sign alerting motorists they were crossing the Suwanee River. The finished product came out to about 910 feet in length, constructed by R.H.H. Blackwell Company of East Aurora, New York, at a cost of about $150,000. The bridge was abandoned in 1983 when a truck carrying an overheight load drove across the bridge and caught on one of the steel crossbeams, tearing it loose from the structure. The old span was already on the list for replacement, and the Florida Department of Transportation moved ahead with their plans. The new bridge opened in 1986.

Hillman Bridge, still open to foot and bike traffic, 2014

Today, the bridge still stands, although it is restricted to foot and bike traffic only. The Florida Department of Transportation deeded it to the Florida Department of Natural Resources in 1986 after the new span opened. It remains one of the best extant examples of a Pratt metal-truss bridge in Florida.

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