Abstract
On April 28, 1911, both the St. Lucie Tribune and the Fort Pierce News published descriptions of an innovative land development project. The Fellsmere Farms Company proposed to drain 118,000 acres of land at the headwaters of the St. Johns River. Since 1910, the newly formed corporation had “shunned publicity, preferring to devote all the time, energy and money to development work.“1 Fellsmere Farms Company was the brainchild of Nelson Fell, an itinerant Englishman and hydraulic engineer with more than three decades of experience in directing land development in Florida. The company’s unusual name, a 1913 sales brochure explained, was a combination of the founder’s name and the word “mere,” which meant “a great watery place.“2 Fell intended the Fellsmere Farms Company to be the culmination of his life’s work.
Recommended Citation
Patterson, Gordon
(1997)
"Ditches and Dreams: Nelson Fell and the Rise of Fellsmere,"
Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 76:
No.
1, Article 3.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol76/iss1/3
