In the winter of 1765, the Pennsylvania father and son John and William Bartram journeyed to the St. Johns River to explore its mysteries and botanical bounty. Just appointed Royal Botanist for North America by King George III, John Bartram’s first task was to create a report on East Florida, a new British colony.
The Quaker naturalists traveled upriver in a dugout canoe, past shady evergreen trees and swamp magnolias, sunning gators and Native American settlements, taking detailed notes.
After disembarking and hiking on Dec. 27, they found one of the “lesser springs” of Florida known as Satsuma, an alcove in the eastern shore of the St. Johns.
Published later in William Bartram’s "Travels," they vividly describe “warm clear water of a very offensive taste,” smelling like “bilge-water, or the washings of a gun-barrel.”
On a more recent travel up the St. Johns, as I take in the stench of the Satsuma Spring’s sulfate odor from the confines of a boat, I can attest that the offensive description remains true these centuries later.
Daniel Knight, the owner of the 78-year-old fishing camp Stegbones, points out the clear patches of fish beds and sandbars as he slowly steers our small motorized boat around the historic site.
Knight, 48, a fisherman since his childhood, knows the surrounding flora and fauna like a Bartram. After a brief tour of his property’s cabins and old-timey boat docks, he’s offered to show me the fishing village of Welaka from the water.
Nearby, an osprey strikes the calm water with sharp precision. The bird of prey emerges with a small green fish in its snare. We watch in silent awe as it circles the spring, stopping briefly in a towering cypress tree to deliver the fatal blow to its flopping prey.
“You don’t see this in the city,” Knight says.
Indeed, you don’t. But in Welaka, a Putnam County town on the east shore of the St. Johns with an estimated population of 948, it’s a regular sight.
Knight steers us past the spring toward the adjacent shore. The Floridian Sports Club, a high-end fish camp with a freshly mowed lawn, sits idly next to a stretch of riverside houses.
The succeeding houses are quietly vacant, their docks empty of boats.
“That’s all John has on the water, they say,” Knight explains.
That unassuming stretch of docks and riverside houses is a line dividing old-Florida Welaka from its unknown future. Thousands of acres have been bought up by a surprising owner – Bass Pro Shops.
The 20 mph tour
Welaka hasn’t strayed far from its history, or the river that started it all. Its name comes from the Timucuan natives’ original term for the St. Johns River, meaning “river of lakes.”
As you drive south of Palatka down County Road 309, the fleeting acres of shady pines and grazing cattle frame a portal to a place frozen in time.
There are no sidewalks or supermarkets and only one traffic light in the 1.5-square-mile town.
Without prior knowledge or an expert in your front seat to guide you, it could be easy to overlook Welaka.
But slow down, and the town reveals a natural haven that has managed to preserve some of what the Bartrams saw on the riverbanks nearly three centuries ago.
Lenore Toole wakes up every morning to the predictable, peaceful ambiance of small-town life.
Toole, 83, is a licensed Realtor and member of the Historical Preservation Board, a committee of three townspeople dedicated to educating other residents and visitors about Welaka’s history.
Before she moved here in the 1990s, she lived a more urban life on the opposite coast, enjoying a successful real estate career in Sarasota.
“When my husband brought me here, I thought I died,” she says on a recent tour of the town. “I was in my early 50s and I thought, ‘Good lord Molly!’”
About 30 years later, her opinion has changed. As she became more involved in the community, she grew to appreciate the closeness; feeding the birds in the quiet mornings; and watching the herds of deer emerging from Welaka State Forest.
She’s learned all she can about the town’s history, and she’s passionate about sharing it with anyone willing to listen.
“I’m pointing out silly things because I’m showing you how little we really are,” she adds as we drive along Third Avenue.
It’s a sunny Saturday morning, and she is taking me on a driving tour of the city. At a whopping speed of 20 miles an hour, we saw the entire town, stops included, in under 20 minutes.
Save for the occasional truck lugging fishing gear, the road was mostly occupied by leisurely paced golf carts. As we pass them by, the passengers wave at us. Toole eagerly waves back.
The amenities here are the basics. There’s a U.S. Post Office, an all-volunteer fire station, and a police station that recently added a third officer to its force. Welaka is also home to a few restaurants, resorts, bait shops, a national fish hatchery, and parks and trails for outdoor recreation.
And there are more churches than any of those other staples: Methodist Church, Church of God by Faith, First Baptist Church of Welaka and Emmanuel Episcopal, to name a few.
The children of Welaka attend schools in neighboring cities. Groceries are picked up at Dollar General, bought outside of town, or delivered periodically by a Kroger truck.
And that’s about it.
“We’ve tried supermarkets and we’ve tried boat things and things that pertain to what somebody does in this area,” she explained.
But besides that, Welaka has not seen any widespread changes. The small number of residents makes it difficult to sustain local businesses, especially if they’re new, Toole says.
Just like the river for which it was named, the town seems to be moving at its own, unhurried pace.
‘Welcome to the Bass Capital of the World”
Freshwater fishing aficionados might know Welaka’s impressive title, “Bass Capital of the World.” The same claim is made by Georgia’s Lake Eufaula, Florida’s Lake Okeechobee and various other hotbeds. But bass fishers speak in the language of hyperbole.
It’s no wonder the area caught the eye of Johnny Morris, founder and CEO of the outdoor recreation retailer Bass Pro Shops.
Morris has a long history with the Welaka area. From his first visit in the 1970s attending the B.A.S.S. fishing tournament, it was love at first sight. “[I] will never forget pulling my boat behind my truck and seeing the billboards as I approached the St. Johns River ‘Welcome to the Bass Capital of the World,’” Morris wrote in a handwritten letter to Florida Trend. “There is no place, outside my home in the Ozarks, more special to me than Florida.”
He purchased the Floridian Sports Club, the 10-room fishing resort Knight showed me earlier. For about 40 years, this small stretch of land was it.
That was until 2021. Bass Pro Shops quietly purchased several neighboring properties in the Welaka and Satsuma areas, now totaling over 5,200 acres.
Above: A map shows the parcels near Welaka that Floridian Holdings LLC has purchased. Bass Pro Shops CEO Johnny Morris owns the company.
The retail giant’s plans are vague. Besides Mayor Jamie Watts’ prediction it will “obviously be some sort of resort,” the site's future is murky. The company has also been working on a resort plan for the shores of Lake Okeechobee in rural southeast Florida and has been vague there too; Morris told the Okeechobee County Economic Development Council the company was “not at all comfortable” submitting detailed plans.
Bass Pro Shops Communications declined to provide any details about Morris’s plans for the St. Johns River. Zachary Baker, senior divisional planning manager for Putnam County, says the county has not yet received any applications or plans from Bass Pro Shops.
“What we know is what the public knows,” Baker says.
Besides its 172 retail stores located across the U.S. and Canada, Bass Pro Shops also runs outdoor-themed resorts. They include Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri’s Ozark Mountains, a 4,600-acre getaway with cabins, golf courses, shopping, dining and fishing, overlooking man-made Table Rock Lake. In downtown Memphis, surrounded by “525,000 square feet of immersive shopping fun,” the company operates Big Cypress Lodge, 105 rustic accommodations encircling an artificial swamp complete with gators, fish and 100-foot cypress trees.
“It could be good, it could be bad”
For a town with such little development, the implications of a $8.1-billion chain moving in next door is a hot topic of conversation. The company’s 5,000 acres are six times the size of the Universal Orlando Resort.
The Welaka Lodge & Resort is a small riverside getaway with cabins and RV sites.
Throughout the circular arrangement of sites, residents lay back on lounge chairs in pools of sunlight. Stray cats sleep in the cool shade underneath luxury campers. Bikers sip pints of beer by the riverside. It’s a senior’s paradise.
One couple sits peacefully outside beneath the shade of a large gray RV. Each in their own world of retired bliss, one takes a leisurely drag from a cigarette while the other reads a book.
Diana Long and Bobby Howard are from St. Augustine and happily call Welaka their home away from home.
“I think [Bass Pro Shops is] going to be good at supporting the community,” Long says.
She is involved with the local non-profit Friends of Welaka and recalls volunteering at last year’s Kids Fishing Rodeo, which was co-sponsored by Bass Pro Shops. She was impressed by the goodie bags the company distributed, which contained top-quality tackle and tackle boxes.
“It’d be a great development but I don’t think a lot of people want it here,” Howard said. “It could be good, it could be bad. You don’t ever know.”
Marti McCoy, 42, has owned this decades-old resort since 2021. Though currently a real estate developer in St. Augustine, he was born and raised in Welaka.
His childhood was filled with camping trips to nearby springs and spending time on the St. Johns River. To this day, he still admires Welaka’s natural beauty and old-town charm.
“You were always on a boat,” McCoy recalls. “I didn’t know any different. I thought Palatka was the biggest city around.”
He operates what could potentially be a competitor to a multi-billion company, but he doesn’t seem too worried.
“I could see it bringing in a lot more people that would normally not have explored a town like that,” McCoy says. “If it was me coming in, I’d come for the Bass Pro and then I’d search out other areas.”
“We know he cares about the St. Johns”
Though the massive acreage and retail shopping specter are a stark contrast to Welaka, environmental advocates point out that Morris is known as a conservationist. The Johnny Morris Conservation Foundation operates attractions and parks that focus on connecting people with the outdoors.
In 2018, he gifted the nonprofit Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida $1 million “to address Florida’s most challenging water and conservation issues.”
“Welaka’s community has a deep connection to the St. Johns and I think that’s what attracted Bass Pro Shops,” Lisa Rinaman, the St. Johns Riverkeeper, says. “It’s really a beautiful gateway to all the wonders of the St. Johns River, whether you’re going to fish or just have a good time out on the water.”
As Riverkeeper, Rinaman serves as the river’s voice, focusing on protection and restoration and working with the community to solve environmental harm. Given Bass Pro Shop’s track record of conservation and Morris’s closeness to the area, she believes they have a like-minded approach to protecting the river.
“The good news is that we know he cares about the St. Johns and he will want to protect the resources that he cares so much about,” she says. “For the river to be a healthy fishing habitat, it needs to be protected.”
There are a lot of ways the company can ensure the project is eco-conscious, Rinaman says, such as erosion-control measures to prevent runoff and protecting wetlands, which provide essential habitat and filtering and protect communities from flooding.
Like everyone else, she is not familiar with any details behind Bass Pro Shop’s plans. She looks forward to seeing what conservation efforts are put in place and potentially working with the company to ensure the river gets the attention it needs.
“Everyone’s drawn there for the same reasons,” she says. “And ultimately, it’s that magical location, right on the banks of the St. Johns River.”
As for the tiny town, Welaka is already taking big strides to try and accommodate more people. The city received over $13 million from the state for upgrading its wastewater treatment plant to serve a 26-square-mile area.
Until more details are released, the people of Welaka are left keeping up their day-to-day lives, waiting with a fisherman’s patience for any sign of change in the Old Florida town.
