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History · Welaka

Welaka’s post office opened in 1851

Most of Welaka was built recently: 2% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1987. Below: 6 old photos and papers, maps from 1970 on, and the census since 1900.

1851first post office
0on the National Register
2%homes built before 1940
6old photos & papers
Add an old photoShare a memory
From Welaka’s archive · credits on each photo
Quick answers

How Welaka began

When was Welaka founded?

1851

The Welaka post office opened in 1851, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 215 in 19002020 census: 714175 years
Founding year: the first Welaka post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
The story

How Welaka came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Welaka.

Read it all →

It is not known when the area was first settled, but the nearby Mount Royal archaeological site is a possible remnant of a Timucua tribal village from c. 1250 CE to 1500 CE, and may have a connection to the town of Enacape, an important center of the Utina tribe.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Welaka, 1851 to 1970

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1851Post officeThe Welaka post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1936In the archiveWelaka wildlife and forest conservation project at Welaka, Florida
  5. 1946In the archiveBrick building along commercial strip
  6. 1970On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

Welaka, decade by decade

2 decades in the archive, from the 1930s to the 1940s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.

1930s5 items
Welaka wildlife and forest conservation project at Welaka, Florida1936Welaka wildlife and forest conservation project at We…Preparing banks for grass planting in one of ten two-acre fish rearing ponds on Welaka wildlife and forest conservation…1936Preparing banks for grass planting in one of ten two-…Quail brooders. Birds are hatched at a rate of more than three hundred a week in the Welaka wildlife and forest conserv…1936Quail brooders. Birds are hatched at a rate of more t…Untitled photo, possibly related to: Preparing banks for grass planting in one of ten two-acre fish rearing ponds on We…1936Untitled photo, possibly related to: Preparing banks …Untitled photo, possibly related to: Preparing banks for grass planting in one of ten two-acre fish rearing ponds on We…1936Untitled photo, possibly related to: Preparing banks …
1940s1 item
Brick building along commercial strip1946Brick building along commercial strip
1950s–1990snothing yet
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Add from your album
On the map

Welaka on the map, 1970 to 1994

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Welaka. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Welaka on the 1970 USGS mapWelaka on the 1980 USGS mapWelaka on the 1994 USGS map1970Welaka sheet · 1:24,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Welaka.

Then & now

Stand where they stood

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.

Welaka wildlife and forest conservation project at Welaka, Florida
Retake this viewWelaka wildlife and forest conservation project at Welaka, Florida, 1936

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Welaka’s page.

Retake this view · +15
People over time

Welaka, census by census

01002003004005006007001900192019401960198020002020714

Grew from 215 people in 1900 to 714 in 2020, 3 times over.

13 censuses, 1900–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Welaka’s Wikipedia page.

Famous people

Famous people close to Welaka

Nobody well known was born in Welaka itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.

See all →
Joseph StilwellUnited States Army general · b. 1883
Eddie JohnsonAmerican soccer player · b. 1984
Michelle McCoolAmerican professional wrestler · b. 1980
A. Philip RandolphBlack American civil rights activist, labor uni… · b. 1889
James B. EdwardsAmerican politician · b. 1927
Bill T. JonesAmerican artist and dancer · b. 1952
Help out

Finish Welaka’s story

Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
2 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Retake an old viewWelaka wildlife and forest conservation…: stand where they stood+15Share a family photoSign in to add one+10

Questions about Welaka’s history

What year was Welaka founded?

The Welaka post office opened in 1851, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (1), the Library of Congress (5), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.