The Galena Rock Festival

A story worthy of a Hollywood script, the music festival billed simply as "Galena" would encounter fierce opposition from three states.

Rolling Stone Magazine promoted the event and even wrote about it in a column about festivals throughout the United States in the summer of 1970. They touted Galena as "the cherished birthplace of US Grant," a slight deviation from the truth. They also teased that the promoters "are still going after the Grateful Dead." Jerry Garcia in Galena?

Alas, it was not meant to be. Read my synopsis below, and read the book that was written about the event.

Rolling Stone ad for Galena rock festival

Advertisement in the July 23, 1970 edition of Rolling Stone Magazine

Imagine a Woodstock-style festival on a farm outside Galena, Illinois - and it almost happened! Scheduled for July 31st through August 2nd, 1970, the festival was advertised in Rolling Stone Magazine and tickets were sold throughout Chicago and by mail order (ask your parents - something we did before the Internet).

Posters were circulated in the Chicago area - this one is stamped "Not in Joe Daviess County"

It started with two entrepreneurs in Chicago who wanted to produce a rock festival in Illinois. One happened to have a relative who owned a farm near Galena, and soon a contract was signed and bands were lined up to play.

The Jo Daviess County Sheriff and the State's Attorney weren't keen on the idea, nor were neighboring farmers and local rednecks (or as we call them, locals). An injunction was filed that stopped construction, and a judge ruled that it was in the public's best interest that the event not happen.

Not able to get refunds from the bands they had booked and not willing to refund the advance ticket revenue, the group went to work looking for an alternate location.

Galena in Wadena

Enlisting help from local law firms, the producers searched high and wide for a new location. Other counties in Illinois were warned and already voicing their opposition, so Wisconsin and Iowa were considered. Wisconsin was hostile to the idea (and for good reason, a festival in La Crosse had ended with multiple deaths when a group of hippies took exception to a biker raping a woman, and the bikers had guns).

They created some subterfuge by renting a farm in Wisconsin and moving their trucks in, leading people to believe the festival would be moved to Wisconsin. While Grant County reacted to the rumors and started legal action of their own, the producers focused on Eastern Iowa.

They found a farm for sale outside of Wadena, a town of just over 400 people about 100 miles west of Galena. They purchased the farm and immediately used their trucks and roadies to move the owner's belongings out and begin constructing the infrastructure to produce a music festival, now dubbed "Galena in Wadena." They had less than two weeks.

Meanwhile, their team of lawyers worked to create corporations and prepared to fight the inevitable injunctions from local officials. They didn't realize the opposition would go all the way to the top.

KHAK.com

50 Years Later, KHAK reports on the event

Amazon.com

Buy the book on Amazon

YouTube.com

Amateur video entering farm and festival grounds

YouTube.com

Music from the bands who played at Wadena

Iowa's Governor and Attorney General tried in vain to stop the event from happening, even having an injunction signed by a supreme court justice (not in that capacity), but the Iowa AG wasn't as savvy as Jo Daviess County's State's Attorney, and the festival was allowed to happen.

In just two weeks time, the group set up two corporations, bought a farm, built a stage and all the accompanying structures, and put on a festival for 30,000 - 50,000 people - all while fighting injunctions by the Iowa attorney general and the disdain of the Iowa governor, who would actually tour the site and tell the kids he hoped they would have a good time.

Not one person was injured or died, and everyone who went reported having the time of their life.

It should have happened in Galena...