Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park.  This Florida park, on the Suwannee River, honors one of America’s most influential composers. There is a museum here and a Carillon Tower.

Suwannee River

The park has special events and festivals every month of the year. The Seminole Chikee Village area is a good place for exhibits.

Seminole Area

A 200′ tall 97-bell Carillion Tower is the centerpiece of the park. They said this is the world’s largest tubular bell instrument in number of bells. Bell concerts can be heard four times a day as well as marking every hour.

Stephen Foster Carillon Tower

Inside the tower is an interpretive exhibit showing the history of the tower and its construction in 1957. Also inside are some Stephen Foster exhibits including this 1854 style ball gown that was presented to the Stephen Foster Center in observance of the 100th anniversary of the copyrighting of “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair”.

Jeanie Ball Gown

There are 10 dioramas in the The Stephen Foster Museum and the lower floor of the Carillion. Each one illustrates the words of some of Stephen Foster’s most popular songs. These were all painstakingly created by hand. Fourteen artists spent two years creating the first eight. They really are fabulous, some have animations.

Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair

Other dioramas include: “Oh, Susanna,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Old Black Joe,” “Old Folks at Home”, “Camptown Races”, and “Way Down Upon de Swanee Ribber.”

Stephen Foster Museum

December is the Festival of Lights here in the park. Millions of lights are on display every night. The weekends include some special activities and family fun stuff.

Christmas Decorations

Since we are already in the campground we can walk or drive around the loop to see all the lights for no additional fee.

Stephen Foster Museum

Stephen Foster CC State Park, #1

When we first got here two days ago it was 80 degrees and raining so we didn’t get out much and were very thankful for air conditioning! Today was the beautiful day. Just in time, since tomorrow morning we move on.

This was the third time we have been to this park. You can see previous blogs if you just click here.

• Distance driven since last stop: 112 miles
• Lodging:  $72.70 (three nights)
• Gasoline:  $100 @ $2.07 Georgia
• Gasoline:  $24   @ $2.29  Florida