Crawford explains that, by mid-century, the "noisy, impromptu entertainments" characteristic of Dan Emmett and the Virginia Minstrels were passé and the minstrel stage was changing to a "restrained and balanced kind of spectacle". Historians cite the village of Camptown, Pennsylvania as the basis for the song, located in the mountains of northeast Pennsylvania. The races were resumed nearby in 1965 as a footrace, without horses. The Pennsylvania Historical Society confirmed that Foster traveled through the small town and afterwards wrote the song. The Bradford County Historical Society documents Foster attending school in nearby Towanda and Athens in 1840 and 1841. The schools were located from the racetrack. The current annual running of the Camptown Races was replaced by a track covering rough lumbering trails. The song was the impetus for renaming Camptown, a village of Clinton Township, Essex County, New Jersey. When the new ballad was published in 1850, some residents of the village were mortified to be associated with the bawdiness in song. The wife of the local postmaster suggested Irvington, to commemorate writer Washington Irving, which was adopted in 1852. In one of the most widely familiar uses of "Camptown Races" in popular culture, the "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn frequently hums the tune to himself (breaking into song only for the "Doo-Dah" refrain) in most of the 28 cartoons the character appears in, produced between 1946 and 1963. Notably, Leghorn was not based on a minstrel character, but on Kenny Delmar's popular radio character, the overbearing Southerner Senator Claghorn. The song was revived on a number of occasions in the twentieth century with recordings by Bing Crosby (recorded December 9, 1940), Johnny Mercer (1945), Al Jolson (recorded July 17, 1950), Julie London (included in her album "Swing Me an Old Song" — 1959), and Frankie Laine (included in his album "Deuces Wild" — 1961). Country music singer Kenny Rogers recorded the song in 1970 with his group, The First Edition, on their album "Tell It All Brother" under the title of "Camptown Ladies". Sung by Tim McManus in Oz Season 4, episode 2  http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/features/2012/best_tv_2012/best_tv_2012_30_rock_and_america_s_kidz_got_singing.html