The sound of Telluride’s history is, in part, the sound of Etta James. 

James performed in 1980 at the Telluride Jazz Fest, and her voice is now being piped into the creaky walls of the Weatherford Gallery upstairs at the Telluride Historical Museum. That’s where Curator of Collections Molly Daniel greets me to take me back in time. 

“This exhibit is about the fiftieth anniversary of both the Bluegrass Festival, the film festival, but it also celebrates as many festivals as we could fit into this space that contributed to Telluride’s community, its culture, and made it the town that it is today,” Daniel says. 

What does a room full of festival memorabilia look like? Posters — over fifty of them — line the walls, alongside historic photographs, wristbands and entry cards of course, newspaper clippings, and one enormous main street banner running the length of the ceiling and blooming with a funky, free-form geometry. 

“And this was made by Naomi Salzman. It's one of these beautiful handmade banners — it’s got these lovely, fun abstract shapes with these vibrant colors. You just walk in and it feels like the energy of a festival in Telluride, which is why I chose this one,” says Daniel. 

Naomi Salzman was the daughter of Emmanuel, who’s name you might recognize as one of the founders of Mushroom Fest. 

Although Mushroom Festival is certainly storied, dating back to 1981, the two fifty-year old juggernauts which ground the exhibition are the Bluegrass Festival and the Film Fest. Daniel takes us into the history of the latter…

“And I think a lot of its history has the Sheridan Opera House to thank,” she says. “The Couple that bought it — the Pences — had a friend who wanted to screen some of his film collection here in Telluride, and that eventually evolved into the full festival. So early it was a lot more about a revival of the classics and showing old archival films and retrospectives — that kind of thing.”

But, Telluride’s festival culture goes much deeper than Film or Bluegrass.  
“The idea of festivals begins with the Fourth of July and you can date the Fourth of July tradition as far back as the 1880s. Obviously it's a big deal today, it was a much bigger deal back then,” says Daniel. “The miners would get a couple days off work, there would be competitions, you could win lots of money…”

For decades, that tradition of an enormous Fourth of July celebration held strong. Daniel points out a paper flier from the mid-twentieth century listing town events for all ages. 

“We’ve got this program from 1941 that I think is really cool and it just shows you the wide variety of events that happened that year,” she says. “We have everything from band concerts to sack races. We have a cracker eating contest for young children; there’s a nail driving contest for young girls and women. It just goes on and on.”

Daniel draws our attention to another 1800s artifact: a photograph of a dozen or so mustachioed men posing quite formally with a distant view of the Bridal Veils rising behind them. Each somber figure clutches a brass horn instrument. 

The photo, it turns out, is of a Telluride Band which traveled to the Mountain and Plain festival in Denver in 1890s, and won the musical competition there three years in a row. 

“And we have this wonderful quote from the newspaper talking about how the band ‘deserves all the praises,’ says Daniel, reading from the article. “‘It has done more to advertise the camp of Telluride and make the thousands of people of Denver familiar with the word Telluride…’ So they were this beloved band at the time and it kind of shows you how this culture of music, this love of music, goes all the way back to at least the 1890s.”

Having studied and collected so many festival backstories, Daniel has some theories on what has made Telluride the festival capital it is today. 

“For a lot of these festivals, it’s been kind of an outside expert in their field — I’m looking at Mushroom Festival, Balloon Festival, and Chamber Music Festival — this is true for each one. There was a local person interested in having this event and they were able to pull in an outside expert who was enthusiastic about doing it, and that’s how it was able to happen — we had all these connections with experts outside of Telluride,” Daniel speculates. 

Once those experts got a taste of the Box Canyon beauty, and brought some of their followers along with them, they wanted to return year after year. 

And the rest — they say — is history.