The Florida State Song "The Swanee River" (Old Folks at Home)

Stephen C. Foster, one of America's Best-loved musical storytellers, wrote "The Swanee River (Old Folks at Home)" in 1851. A memorial center at White Springs honors Foster, who authored about 200 songs during his prolific career.

The Suwannee River flows southerly from the Okeefenokee Swamp in Georgia to the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, topographically slicing the Florida panhandle from the rest of the state.

After Foster wrote "The Swanee River" in 1851, he sold it to famed minstrelman E. P. Christy. Foster is reported to have chosen the "Swanee" because its two-syllable cadence fit nicely into the music he had composed. It could not have been due to a familiarity with the river's Florida section, since Foster never visited the state.

Through House Concurrent Resolution No. 22 in 1935, S. P. Robineau of Miami successfully entered "The Swanee River" as the official state song, replacing "Florida my Florida"  which had been adopted as the State Song in 1913. By 1935 Foster's rightful position as a writer and composer had been established.