By: Alan Aptheker
The history of the Ortega includes a number of interesting characters, some more dubious than others: Famed botanist William Bartram; highwayman and cattle rustler Daniel McGirtt; and Don Juan McQueen, who attempted to establish a plantation on his 1791 Ortega land grant, but was forced to leave due to attacks by Georgians from the north and French armies to the south. Gangster George "Machine Gun" Kelly and his wife were rumored to be the mysterious couple who abruptly left their rented Ortega Grand Avenue home hours before a midnight police raid in 1933.
