Stephen Foster CC Park

After a great weekend of fun and friends at Faith's stamping retreat, we went through the Stephen Foster Folk Cultural Center State Park and took some photos. Infomation and pictures on the stamping retreat can be found on my stamping blog. I'm so glad that I did. It was one of the prettiest parks and campgrounds we've been to. Beautiful trees with Spanish moss graced the park. It was a great place for running, too. I did not realize what a great man Stephen Foster was until we went through the museum and bell tower. The bells, with the largest weighing 426 pounds and 12.5 feet long to the smallest weighing 69 pounds and 3.5 feet long, toll every 15 minutes and on the hour rang out a familiar "concert" of his songs. There were many beautiful pianos throughout the museum along with dioramas depicting some of his most known songs.

He wrote so many songs and was a great muscian. We picked up a sheet with all of his songs listed and it was written in tiny print, three columns, and a FULL page. The Suwannee River runs through the park and he is the one that wrote that famous song, "Way Down Upon the Suwannee River". Little did I realize the artist had never seen the river! He lived in Pennsylvania. Other familiar songs he wrote was "Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair", "Camptown Races", "The Merry, Merry Month of May", "Nelly Bly", "Old Folks at Home", "My Old Kentucky Home", and "Oh! Susanna". Mr. Foster died at a very young age of 37. He had a high fever. When he got up to go to the bathroom, he fell (from the fever) and hit his head and bled a long time before he was found. Though he was alive when found he had lost so much blood he never recuperated from the loss.

Here are scenes of the park. All the buildings were painted a soft yellow; very stately looking. A couple of the photos are sideways but wanted to share them anyway. Place your mouse on the top of the picture for it to stop so you can see it better. We hope you enjoy them.