The first festival was held in 1962 on the 15-acre horse farm of C. Colket Wilson, a horse-breeder who had built an open-air stage. He had also invited the nascent Pennsylvania Ballet to perform there.
That initial Hootenanny was a two-day affair that drew 2,500 people and featured the likes of Pete Seeger, the Rev. Gary Davis, Rambling Jack Elliott, and the Greenbriar Boys. Seeger gave the event instant credibility, said Gene Shay, cofounder and an emcee since the event's inception.
A 1963 preview in the Sunday Bulletin noted "the local members of the Hootenanny tribe - young, old and in-between, fuzzy-cheeked, clean-shaven and bearded-beatnik style." Reports put the crowd that year at 10,000, and the event began to draw national attention. The next year, attendance swelled to 18,000.
As the crowds grew, residents complained. A concert ran past midnight in 1964, and the township revoked a special exemption, saying the now-three-day gathering violated a carnival ordinance.
But the feisty folkies appealed in the courts and won, allowing the show to go on. Name acts in 1965 included Phil Ochs, Mississippi John Hurt, Judy Collins, Tom Rush, and Tom Paxton. That show was the last in Paoli as organizers realized the festival needed breathing room. So the musical circus sought greener pastures.
In 1967, Upper Salford invited the festival to use a township park on land donated by Abe Pool.
But in 1971, the township asked the festival to leave, citing traffic and moral problems. It was welcomed by Pool to the unused meadow adjacent to the park on the Old Pool Farm, where the festival has been held since.
- Mike Zebe
