Welaunee is a pastoral, historic link between the Apalachee and Seminole Indian settlements of yesteryear and today's progressive capital city of the nation's fourth largest state.

In the early days, Miccosukee Road, which runs alongside Welaunee, served as a trade route for the American Indians. When the first settlers arrived in the early 19th century, they found favorable weather and rich red earth to plant the cotton that already had exhausted their fields in Virginia, Maryland, Georgia and the Carolinas. Within a short time, Leon County ranked as the top cotton producin county in Florida - until the crop failed in the late 19th century.

After the Civil War, quail emerged as an important resource as well-to-do northerners bought the failing cotton land for hunting preserves. Udo M. Fleischmann, a banker and sportsman from New York, became enamored of this region for its natural beauty and the fine hunting it afforded. Around 1909, he began aquiring land east and northeast of Tallahassee, including land that is now Welaunee.

His sister and brother-in-law, Louise and Alfred B. Maclay, later bought property surrounding Lake Hall, north of Tallahassee. They called it Killearn, after Mr. Maclay's birthplace in Scotland. They designed and maintained a beautiful botanical garden that would become the centerpiece of the Alfred B. Maclay State Gardens off Thomasville Road. The gardens were donated to the State of Florida in the mid 1960s by Mrs. Maclay.

In the early 1960s, John W. Mettler, Jr. of New Brunswick, New Jersey, a nephew of the Fleischmanns, acquired Welaunee. In 1965, he and his wife, Eleanor, moved to the property with their children and a herd of cattle. Until their deaths in 1990 and 1994, respectively, they were cultural and civic leaders in the community. Descendants of the Mettlers continue to be involved with the management and use of Welaunee and are also active in the community.