Suwannee is a fishing village, with a population of about 300. It caters for both freshwater fishing in the river and saltwater fishing in the Gulf of Mexico.[1] During the 19th century, the area on which the town sits was an important staging ground for goods traveling to and from the cotton and tobacco plantations throughout the Suwannee Valley. The 1939 Florida guide notes that "small wood-burning sternwheelers of the Mississippi type plied the lower stretches of the Suwannee, carrying cotton, tobacco, peanuts, naval stores, and lumber from the interior to the high-masted schooners anchored at the river mouth. The Belle of the Suwannee, Captain Robert Bartlett commanding, was the queen of the fleet. During the war blockade runners traveled up and down the stream; several were burned and sunk, but many succeeded in eluding the Federal gunboats."[2]
^Federal Writers' Project (1956). Florida: A Guide to the Southernmost State (8th ed.). United States of America: State of Florida Department of Public Instruction. p. 418.