Who Started This, and Why?

Not a Scottish immigrant. A Chamber of Commerce guy.

His name was James Durward. In the 1970s he was president of the Estes Park Chamber of Commerce, and he had a problem that anybody running a shop or a motel in this town still understands. Summer packs the sidewalks. Then Labor Day hits and the valley goes quiet for a month before ski season picks it back up.

Durward happened to be a lifelong student of Scottish heritage. So he built an event around it. His obituary, printed in the Estes Park News after he died in May 2023, says it plainly: he created the festival "to provide commerce and community opportunities during the fall season."

Moe asked if that meant the bagpipes were basically a marketing plan.

That's exactly what they were. A good one, too. It's still running fifty years later.

Why a Highland Games in a Colorado Valley With No Scots in Sight?

There were more Scots in sight than you'd guess.

Durward didn't build this out of nothing. Griffith Evans, a Welshman, showed up in this valley in 1867 and opened what's usually called the area's first dude ranch, years before Estes Park was anything but a handful of cabins. He wasn't the only one. The trade magazine Celtic Life International notes that a good share of the valley's earliest settlers came out of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

Moe wanted to know if that meant the festival was really about ancestry.

No. That's the part worth being straight about. Durward's own reason, the one his obituary states, was economic, not sentimental. The Celtic roots already sitting in this valley's early history are a nice coincidence he could point to. They're not why he did it. He did it to sell hotel rooms in September.

How Do You Get From a Picnic to a Weekend With a Sword-Fighting TV Star?

Slowly, and then all at once.

Celtic Life International sums up the start of it in one line worth repeating: the festival "grew from 4 families and a picnic" into the multi-day event it is now. No stage, no vendors, just people who liked the idea enough to show up with a blanket.

Moe said that sounded like most things in this valley. Small, then somehow not small anymore.

Fifty years gets you there. This year's lineup includes Highland Athletics both Saturday and Sunday, an event called the Estes Park International Tattoo on Friday and Saturday nights, and daily sword demonstrations from actor Adrian Paul, who spent years playing a sword-fighting immortal on the TV series Highlander. None of that fits on a picnic blanket anymore.

A picnic doesn't need a schedule printed on a laminated card. This does. Fifty years of people actually showing up does that to an idea. It stops being an idea and turns into infrastructure.

Moe asked what a tattoo has to do with bagpipes.

Wrong kind entirely. This one's a military-parade word, a formal show of massed pipers and drummers, nothing to do with ink. He didn't believe me until I told him to look it up himself.

Does the Fifty Actually Hold Up?

Checked it three separate ways. It holds.

Anniversary numbers in this business get inflated more often than not. This one didn't need to be. An Estes Park News piece from 2016 called that year's event the "40 Years" festival. One from 2017 called it the 41st annual. One from 2023 called it the 47th annual. Do the subtraction on any of the three and you land on the same year. 1976.

Moe said that was the most boring way anybody's ever confirmed anything to him.

Boring is the point. Three different reporters, three different years, nobody comparing notes, and the math comes out the same every time. That's about as solid as a fifty-year claim gets.

So What Do You Actually Do About It This Weekend?

Show up Friday if you want the full arc of it.

The festival runs September 11 through 13 at the fairgrounds on Manford Avenue, with the field open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. The Tattoo goes 7 p.m. Friday and 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Highland Athletics check in at 7:30 a.m. both Saturday and Sunday, with competition starting at 8. Adrian Paul's sword demonstrations run Friday through Sunday at 10 a.m., 12:15, and 2:15. And if you want to start early, the festival's own pub crawl kicks off Thursday, September 10, the same day this newsletter lands in your inbox, at 5:30 p.m.

Moe asked if he needed a kilt.

You need a lawn chair and about six hours. Bring the chair Friday if you can. That's the day it's still small enough to notice the field filling up in real time. The kilt's optional. Four families figured that out in 1976, and nobody's had a reason to argue with them since.