Lake Ella in Tallahassee, Florida

Lake Ella is a City of Tallahassee stormwater lake in Midtown beside North Monroe Street, ringed by the city park named for Fred Drake.

The city's parks map lists Lake Ella and Fred O. Drake Jr. Park together at 19.1 acres. The Midtown Action Plan describes Lake Ella as one of two smaller pockets of activity north of the heart of Midtown, on the west side, and as one of four subtle sub-districts within Midtown along with Monroe Street, Thomasville Road South and Thomasville Road North. It names Lake Ella, with the Los Robles gates and the Capital Plaza shopping center, among Midtown's well-known Tallahassee landmarks, calling it a recreational destination for decades.

Lake Ella is also a working part of the city's drainage system. The City of Tallahassee stormwater guide says the Lake Ella facility, constructed in 1986, combines wet detention with chemical treatment and was the first facility of its type in the State of Florida. The streets around it, Lake Ella Drive, Sgt. Dale Green Way and DeSoto Street, are named on the city's utility upgrades project page, which refers to the road around the water as the Lake Ella Loop.

The city treats runoff at Lake Ella with aluminum sulfate, and its stormwater guide says the facility handles approximately 60 million gallons of stormwater runoff a year.

The guide explains that Tallahassee operates two aluminum sulfate chemical treatment facilities, which it calls highly efficient because they combine wet detention with chemical treatment. Stormwater facilities, the guide says, receive runoff from streets, parking lots, homes and yards, and accumulate trash, sediment and pollutants ranging from nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen to bacteria, heavy metals, oil and grease.

The two figures are not on the same scale: the Lake Ella number is a yearly total and the Weems Pond number is a daily treatment capacity. Earlier City of Tallahassee web pages about Lake Ella that gave other yearly volumes are no longer online and are not used here.

A state historical marker says Chandler's Tourist Camp moved to Lake Ella in 1929, and State Archives records document a motor court there by 1939 and water skiing on July 4, 1960.

The 2014 Chandler's Tourist Camp marker at 300 South Adams Street says Gilbert Chandler, an asparagus farmer from Minneapolis and a pioneer of Florida's tourist camp industry, leased seven acres of city land south of the Capitol on Adams Street for an auto camp in 1925, with a store, a laundry, a community center, a bathhouse and three tiny cabins. As auto tourism grew, the camp moved to Lake Ella in 1929 to take advantage of traffic on the Old Spanish Trail, which linked Florida to California. The marker adds that the Adams Street site became the Ben Bridges ball field before state buildings went up there in the 1960s.

Read together, the Tallahassee records place a motor court on North Monroe Street at Lake Ella before World War II, a motor hotel on the same highway frontage in 1952, Fourth of July water skiing on the lake in 1960, and a flooded road beside it in 1966, two decades before the city built its stormwater facility there. The 1939 postcard's border note pairs the Lake Ella address with U.S. 90 and U.S. 27, and the 1952 record places the motor hotel on U.S. Highway 27.

The State Archives are part of the Florida Department of State, and Florida Memory says it gives free online access to select archival records from the State Library and Archives of Florida. Other parts of Lake Ella's history that appear only in newspaper columns, such as its earlier names and the later growth of the motor court, are left out of this guide because no official source for them was found.

Blueprint's Lake Jackson Greenway project plans an approximately five-mile connection between Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park and Lake Ella in Midtown Tallahassee.

Blueprint's project FAQ says the project combines two greenways from the 2015 Tallahassee-Leon County Greenways Master Plan: the Lake Jackson Greenway from Doris Drive to Parwez PA Alam Park at Okeeheepkee Prairie Preserve, and the Lake Jackson South Greenway and Cycling Route from Livingston Road to Lake Ella Drive. South of John Knox Road the greenway becomes a cycling route along Delta Boulevard and Dellwood Drive, with a paved trail between Glenview Drive and Tharpe Street, and the cycling route is planned to end at Fred O. Drake City Park and Lake Ella at Legion Street.

The project does not build new trailheads or parking; the Blueprint FAQ lists Fred O. Drake Park at Lake Ella as one of three places with parking for greenway users. The same FAQ estimated design completion in early 2023, construction beginning later in 2023 and completion by the end of 2024, and it points readers to a regularly updated Blueprint project snapshot for current status, which this guide does not restate.

The City of Tallahassee's Lake Ella and DeSoto Utility Upgrades Project replaces aging sewer and water lines on streets beside the lake, including Lake Ella Drive and DeSoto Street.

The city's project page says the work involves approximately 4,800 linear feet of new sewer and approximately 3,300 feet of new water line, will enhance fire protection, and will be followed by resurfacing of the affected roads. A community open house was held on October 25, 2022. The contractor was limited to closing one side of the Lake Ella Loop at a time, and the first phase ran from 246 DeSoto Street to the Sgt. Dale Green Way intersection at Lake Ella Drive.

A July update on the same Tallahassee page announced a 14-day, 24-hour closure of the intersection of North Meridian Road and DeSoto Street with a marked detour. The page gives the schedule as planned dates and does not post a completion date, so this guide reports the schedule only as the city stated it.

The Midtown Action Plan, produced with the Midtown Working Group, lists a safer pedestrian crossing from Lake Ella to the west side of Monroe Street as a high-priority, mid-term item.

In its action table, the plan assigns that crossing to the CRTPA, FDOT and Public Works, and lists evaluating private concessions such as Lake Ella paddle boat rentals or roller blades as a mid-term, low-priority item. Working group ideas recorded in the appendix include roller skate rental, closing the road around the lake for free play, paddle boat rentals and a mobile food vendor area, possibly a small parking area at Lake Ella, along with a trail connection from Glenview Drive to East Tharpe Street and Lake Ella.

The plan also suggested that patrons could use nearby parking when it was not in use and asked for a crosswalk or median and a pedestrian crossing at Lake Ella Drive. It scheduled working group coordination meetings for August 2010 and February 2011, so its proposals date from that period; it is a planning record of ideas for Midtown and Lake Ella, not a list of finished projects.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, using the City of Tallahassee stormwater guide, parks map, Lake Ella and DeSoto utility project page and Midtown Action Plan, Blueprint's Lake Jackson Greenway FAQ, the Chandler's Tourist Camp marker record and five State Archives of Florida records on Florida Memory.