Stephen Foster Park - Day 2

We arrived in the middle of the week.The following weekend is considered one of the busiest they have all year called the Florida Folk Festival, but for us, the park was almost empty.



We decided to walk around and explore all the buildings, talk to the Rangers, inspect the Carillon Building and look over the Museum.

It is all within a nice walk so after breakfast we set off. The Carillon building is actually named the Stephen Foster Memorial Carillon. The Park itself honors one of America's most influential composers and celebrates Florida's cultural traditions. Stephen Foster was born in 1826 and died 1864. In his lifetime, he composed over 200 songs, many of which are very familiar to Americans such as "Way Down Upon The Suwanee River."

Oddly enough, Mr. Foster never visited Florida, but was fascinated with the stories he heard from others and loved writing songs about the south.



The bell tower was constructed in 1957 and 1958, is 200 feet high and holds 97 tubular bells. The 97-bell carillon was silenced during the early 1980's due to the enormous maintenance cost of the aging system. In 1991-92 enough funds were raised to restore one set of 32 bells.






Inside the base of the building was the biggest surprise. It is encased in a beautiful, light colored, polished marble...floor to ceiling. As you can see it is cavernous. We were just amazed to walk around with no one else in the building. Housed are several large dioramas depicting the more famous songs by Mr. Foster, several of his pianos and instruments he used through the years, and the actual bell computer system under glass.

The whole building is quite a beautiful piece of architecture and the bells, which sound off from 8:00am to 5:00pm every quarter hour, were a blessing to listen to and enjoy.