Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass Festival, East Texas Bluegrass Festival | 50 Years at Salmon Lake Park
In 1976, Floyd Salmon and Joe Featherston promoted the first Bluegrass Festival at Salmon Lake Park. The idea had come from Earl Garner of Elkhart, a bluegrass fiddler who suggested the park might be a good place to hold a festival.
It was.
This October, Salmon Lake Park will celebrate the 50th Annual Bluegrass Festival, October 22–24, 2026, in Grapeland, Texas. Fifty festivals have brought a lot of musicians, campers, families, and stories through the park since that first gathering.
For some, the Bluegrass Festival is an October trip to hear live music in East Texas. For others, it's a weekend that's been on the calendar for years. Some remember coming when the festival was held over Labor Day. Others grew up attending with their families and now have memories that stretch across several decades.
The 50th gives us a good reason to look back at where it all started.
Bluegrass at Salmon Lake Park: Quick Facts
What: The annual Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass Festival
Where: Salmon Lake Park in Grapeland, Texas
Region: Piney Woods of East Texas
First festival: 1976
50th Annual Festival: October 22–24, 2026
Experience: Live bluegrass music, camping, informal picking, and festival activities
Stay on-site: RV sites and cabins are available at Salmon Lake Park
Not the same festival: The annual Bluegrass Festival is separate from the Gospel Bluegrass Festival held at Salmon Lake Park
Future festivals: Current dates, schedules, performers, tickets, and festival information are available through the official Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass website
In short: The Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass Festival began in 1976 in Grapeland, Texas, and celebrates its 50th annual gathering October 22–24, 2026. The festival brings bluegrass music and camping together at Salmon Lake Park, where visitors can stay in an RV or cabin during the event. Current and future festival details are maintained on the official Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass website.
Before There Was a Bluegrass Festival
The Bluegrass Festival story begins before there was a festival at all.
Floyd and Fannie Salmon acquired 50 acres near Grapeland in 1960. Floyd cleared the property and created a lake that was originally intended to provide water for cattle.
The lake didn't stay a cattle pond for long.
With help from Floyd's father, Jake, the Salmons opened it to the public. The spring-fed lake was developed for swimming, and camper hookups were eventually added.
Floyd's work in the house-moving business also shaped what Salmon Lake Park would become. Buildings were moved onto the property, repaired, and given new purposes. Over time, the collection of old buildings, cabins, gathering places, camping areas, and the lake developed into the park generations of visitors know today.
In a television interview years later, Floyd remembered some of those early days. His children and others began coming to swim, and word spread that you could go swimming at the lake for a quarter.
The park grew from there.
The Idea That Started a 50-Festival Tradition
According to Salmon Lake Park's history, Earl Garner of Elkhart suggested that the park would make a good location for a bluegrass festival.
Floyd later told the story himself in a television news interview. He remembered moving a house for a man who was a bluegrass fiddler and later inviting him down to the park for hamburgers. During that visit, the idea of having a festival at Salmon Lake Park came up.
Joe Featherston and Floyd Salmon promoted the event, and the first Bluegrass Festival was held in 1976.
Labor Day weekend became home to the annual gathering. Friday evening opened the festival, and Sunday morning included worship and bluegrass gospel music.
One conversation over hamburgers had turned into an annual event.
Hear the story from Floyd Salmon himself. In this television news feature, Floyd talks about the early days of Salmon Lake Park, how the Bluegrass Festival got its start, and how the park grew alongside it. The story also offers a look at Salmon Lake Park during an earlier chapter of its history, when the annual Bluegrass Festival was still held over Labor Day weekend.
The interview also gives us an idea of how large some festival weekends had become by then. Floyd recalled seeing as many as 500 RVs and an estimated 3,500 to 4,000 people, depending on the weather.
Those are historical figures from Floyd's interview, not current attendance numbers, but they show just how much the festival had grown since 1976.
Bluegrass Found a Home at Salmon Lake Park
The scheduled performances have always been an important part of the Bluegrass Festival, but anyone who has spent a festival weekend here knows there is more happening around the park.
Campers settle in for the weekend. Musicians find places to pick together away from the scheduled performances. People visit between sets, walk back to their RVs, share meals, and catch up with friends they may see only a few times a year.
That relationship between the music and the campground helped shape the festival.
People didn't necessarily come to Salmon Lake Park for a performance and then leave. They stayed.
And many came back the next year.
After enough years, familiar campsites, familiar faces, and the sound of instruments around the park became part of the festival right along with the stage.
The Festival Posters Tell Their Own Story
There is a written history of the Bluegrass Festival, but some of the most interesting records are the old festival posters.
The Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass website has preserved a collection spanning decades, and scrolling through them is a quick trip through the festival's history.
There's a Bluegrass Reunion flyer from 1979. The 1980 poster advertises dates of August 29–30. Then come the numbered festivals, including the Fifth Annual in 1981, Sixth in 1982, and Seventh in 1983.
Salmon Lake Park celebrated the 10th Annual Bluegrass Festival in 1986, the 20th in 1996, and the 25th in 2001.
The designs changed. So did the performers, dates, and details.
For people who were here, an old poster can bring back much more than a lineup. You may remember who came with you, where you camped, what RV you had at the time, or how young the kids were that year.
A Texas Bluegrass Tradition Passed Through Generations
By the 40th Annual Bluegrass Festival in 2016, some festivalgoers had been coming to Salmon Lake Park for decades.
As part of that anniversary, longtime visitors were encouraged to share photographs, stories, funny memories, and recollections of children growing up at the festival.
That's part of what happens when an event lasts this long. The history isn't limited to what happened on stage.
Children who once came with their parents grow up. Campers change. Friends bring friends. New musicians arrive, while other names on old posters immediately take longtime festivalgoers back to a particular year.
The festival becomes a marker in people's own histories too.
The Festival Has Changed Over the Years
Salmon Lake Park isn't exactly the place it was in 1976, and the Bluegrass Festival hasn't remained frozen in time either.
New musicians have taken the stage, new generations have discovered the music, and the park itself has continued to change.
Even the traditional festival weekend changed.
For decades, Labor Day and the Bluegrass Festival went together at Salmon Lake Park. Beginning in 2024, the annual festival moved to October, bringing the event into the cooler fall season in East Texas.
The 48th Annual Bluegrass Festival was held in 2024, followed by the 49th in October 2025.
This October, the count reaches 50.
The Park and the Festival Grew Up Together
The Bluegrass Festival isn't simply an event that happens to take place at Salmon Lake Park. Its history overlaps with the development of the park itself.
The first festival was held in 1976, the same year Floyd moved what would become the Crazy Horse Saloon onto the property. The old grocery store from Mapleton was repaired and turned into one of the park's most recognizable buildings.
Other buildings followed over the years. Floyd and Fannie preserved and repurposed old structures while adding cabins, gathering spaces, camping areas, and other features around the lake.
The television interview with Floyd captures some of this history. He talks about moving and rebuilding structures of different sizes and using them for overnight guests, weddings, reunions, and music events.
While Salmon Lake Park was taking shape, the Bluegrass Festival was growing right along with it.
That's why the 50th Annual Bluegrass Festival belongs in the history of Salmon Lake Park itself.
An October Music Festival in the Heart of East Texas
October is now Bluegrass Festival time at Salmon Lake Park.
The 50th Annual Bluegrass Festival takes place October 22–24, 2026, bringing three days of live bluegrass music to Grapeland in the Piney Woods of East Texas.
That makes it an easy addition to an October trip for anyone looking for live music, fall events, or things to do in East Texas. This year's festival has something extra, of course. There are 49 previous gatherings behind it.
Visitors also have the option of staying where the festival is happening. Salmon Lake Park has RV sites and cabins, so a trip for live music can become a few days at the park rather than a drive in and out for a performance.
The stage may be where everyone looks when the music starts, but plenty of festival memories are made elsewhere around the park.
Bluegrass and Camping Have Long Gone Together Here
Camping isn't an add-on to the Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass experience. It has been part of festival weekends for decades.
That old news story with Floyd makes the connection particularly clear. At one point in the festival's history, he remembered hundreds of RVs arriving for the event.
Today, having the campground and festival on the same property still gives visitors a different way to experience a music festival.
You can stay in your RV or reserve a cabin. Between scheduled performances, you can head back to your site, visit with friends, grab something you forgot, or simply sit for a while before heading back.
Then there is the picking.
Informal music away from the stage has long been part of bluegrass gatherings. At Salmon Lake Park, musicians and festivalgoers are sharing the same property for several days, which leaves plenty of opportunity for music to turn up somewhere other than the official schedule.
Future performers and schedules will change from year to year. The combination of bluegrass, camping, and several days together at Salmon Lake Park is much older than any single lineup.
Celebrating the 50th Annual Bluegrass Festival
The 50th Annual Bluegrass Festival at Salmon Lake Park is October 22–24, 2026, in Grapeland, Texas.
This year's festival adds another poster, another lineup, and another weekend to a history that began in 1976.
For current information about performers, tickets, schedules, festival activities, vendors, and other details, visit the official Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass website.
If you're planning to stay at Salmon Lake Park during the festival, check cabin and RV availability early. Major event weekends can fill available accommodations.
The dates and performers will eventually become another entry in the festival's history.
The fact that it was number 50 won't.
Fifty Festivals Mean a Lot of Stories
A list of dates can tell us when the festivals happened. The posters can tell us who was scheduled to play. Photographs can show us what the park looked like at different points along the way.
They can't capture every story.
Someone remembers exactly where the family camper used to sit. Someone else remembers coming as a child. There are people who met friends here, musicians who returned more than once, families who planned the same weekend together year after year, and probably more than a few old photographs tucked away in boxes and albums.
That's the history that doesn't always make it onto a poster.
After 50 festivals, there is a lot of it.
A Tradition Worth Preserving
That's also one reason we wanted to tell this story on the Salmon Lake Park blog.
The official Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass website has preserved a collection of festival posters from across the years. Taken together with old photographs, programs, videos, and the memories of the people who were here, they help preserve a piece of the park's history.
If you've been coming to the Bluegrass Festival for years, take a look through the old posters. You may recognize one immediately.
And if your family has photographs, programs, or other pieces of Bluegrass Festival history packed away somewhere, keep them.
Nobody standing at Salmon Lake Park in 1976 knew people would be looking back on that first festival 50 gatherings later.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass Festival
Where is the Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass Festival held?
The annual Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass Festival is held at Salmon Lake Park in Grapeland, Texas, in the Piney Woods of East Texas.
When did the Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass Festival begin?
The first Bluegrass Festival at Salmon Lake Park was held in 1976. According to the park's history, Earl Garner of Elkhart suggested holding a bluegrass festival at Salmon Lake Park. Joe Featherston and Floyd Salmon promoted the first event.
Is there a bluegrass festival in East Texas with camping?
Yes. The Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass Festival is held at a campground with RV sites and cabins, so visitors can stay on the property during the festival. Camping has been part of Bluegrass Festival weekends at Salmon Lake Park for decades.
Can you stay at Salmon Lake Park during the Bluegrass Festival?
Yes. Salmon Lake Park offers RV sites and cabins. Availability can become limited during major events, so visitors who want to stay at the park during a future Bluegrass Festival should check availability early.
Is the Bluegrass Festival the same as the Gospel Bluegrass Festival?
No. They are separate festivals held at Salmon Lake Park. The annual Bluegrass Festival celebrating its 50th gathering in 2026 began in 1976. The Gospel Bluegrass Festival was established separately.
When is the 50th Annual Bluegrass Festival at Salmon Lake Park?
The 50th Annual Bluegrass Festival is October 22–24, 2026, at Salmon Lake Park in Grapeland, Texas.
When is the Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass Festival held each year?
For decades, the festival was associated with Labor Day weekend. Beginning in 2024, it moved to October. Because dates can vary from year to year, check the official Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass website for current festival dates.
Where can I find tickets, performers, and the current festival schedule?
Current dates, performers, schedules, tickets, activities, vendors, and other festival-specific information are available through the official Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass website.
Can I see posters from previous Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass Festivals?
Yes. The Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass website maintains a collection of festival posters spanning decades. The posters provide a visual record of the festival from its earlier years through more recent gatherings.
What makes the Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass Festival different from other music festivals in Texas?
The festival is held at Salmon Lake Park, where RV camping, cabins, live bluegrass, and informal picking can all be part of the same stay. The event also has a history dating to 1976, with generations of festivalgoers returning to the same East Texas park.
Here's to 50 Years of Bluegrass at Salmon Lake Park
Floyd and Fannie Salmon began building Salmon Lake Park in 1960.
The first Bluegrass Festival followed in 1976.
Now we're getting ready for number 50.
That's a lot of campers, lawn chairs, instruments, meals, conversations, photographs, old friends, new friends, and music packed into one corner of East Texas.
To everyone who helped get the festival started, kept it going, played here, camped here, brought the family, or made the trip back year after year, thank you for being part of the story.
And if 2026 will be your first Bluegrass Festival at Salmon Lake Park, welcome.
Planning for this year or a future Bluegrass Festival? Visit the official Salmon Lake Park Bluegrass website for current festival dates, performers, schedules, and tickets. For cabins and RV sites at Salmon Lake Park, check availability online or call the park office at 936-687-2594.
Comments