“Well, of course, it’s a milestone, and it’s a measure of time for all of us,” said Peter Seward, one of the founders of Hobofest. “You know, sometimes we have a five or 10-year plan in life, and we see it as an accomplishment. So we wanted to come full circle and bring back some of the acts who actually have been playing on and off throughout our history.”

Hobofest, the brainchild of Seward of Todd Smith, was originally held at the Saranac Lake Union Depot train station. The setting went along with the theme of hobos and a cultural and music exchange through transportation. Later, the festival moved to Riverside Park.

Seward said there was a trade-off moving from the train station to Riverside Park. While he likes the park because it’s a more visible location with a permanent band shell, Seward thought the train tracks embodied more of the Hobofest feel.

“The tracks felt like things were more on a whim, and you can do something riskier with the programming. I think this year’s program is very solid, but nobody’s going to be scared away by anything too eccentric.”

Most of the artists playing this year have performed at Hobofest in the past.

Crackin’ Foxy and Biscuit Rollers played their first shows at Hobofest.

“I’d like to think those bands were made for Hobofest,” Seward said. “Certainly in Crackin’ Foxy’s case, they’ve gone through so many personnel changes yet retaining band leader Mark Hofschneider’s original narrow parameters of what he wanted to do.”

Sparrow Smith from Resonant Rogues said Seward and Hobofest gave her band plenty of exposure when she and her husband Keith were first starting out. Sparrow is not her real name. She said she picked it up while hitchhiking through Utah years ago.

“We were playing in the street or something in Seattle, and someone who knew [Seward] picked up a demo CD of ours and brought it back to him in New York,” Sparrow said. “He believed in us from the get-go.”

The Blind Owl Band feels similar about Hobofest.

“We had played for about three months together in college, and then we did our own things when Paul Smith’s let out for summer break,” said mandolin player Eric Munley. “Then right as school was about to start up again we did Hobofest, so it’s pretty special to us.”

Munley said the festival helped expose his band outside of shows at the college and the Waterhole, which he now owns.

“By the time we played our second Hobofest,” he said, “we had played 50 plus shows in the area, so we had a lot of people from Paul Smith’s and Plattsburgh come out because in that time we really cemented ourselves as a serious band.”

Seward said there’s sometimes confusion of how Hobofest came to be.

“One time someone said to me, ‘Hobofest? Is that the festival that the Blind Owl Band started?'” he said. “It’s is interesting to see their fan base grow all of the sudden.”

Munley thought it was funny and that it adds to the Blind Owl Band folklore.

“There are all these little pieces of history about the band that sometimes creates confusion,” he said. “We call our music ‘Adirondack Freight Train’ music, and now a lot of people think that we actually met on trains. It’s awesome myths like that, and I don’t like correcting them. Sometimes people don’t know that I’m actually in the band, and they tell me this little myth, so I just let it build.”

Munley said he and the band never had to rely on a train to get to a show like a textbook hobo, but they did do a lot of busking.

“Early on we busked in Lake Placid [at Mid’s Park], and we made a ton of money,” he said. “That was our career plan for that moment. Then the second and last time we did it the next day, we got shut down. That place is a gold mine for a busker if they would ever allow it.”

Dom Flemons is a Grammy-award winning folk-blues artist and previously a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. This will be his first time playing Hobofest.

After attending the Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, North Carolina, Flemons discovered the deeper history to the instrument and its place in African-American music. He sold everything he owned, left his home state of Arizona and moved to North Carolina. Since then, every year he puts about 10,000 miles on his car’s odometer, traveling back and forth across the country.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve jumped on the freight trains,” Flemons said, “but I am a traveling man. I’ve driven all over this country three or four times over. I’m not a straight-up hobo, but I move around a lot.”

With 10 years comes the end of an era for Seward and many of the founding members.

“Word is on the street that this is the last Hobofest for its founders, Todd and I and for most of the committee,” Seward said. “There is a committee member that is going to continue. We found a committee of known people in this community – we’re going to introduce them on the event day – and they’re interested in carrying on this event.”

Seward said accomplishing 10 years is the fulfillment of a lot of dreams for him and he kind of wants to quit while he’s ahead.

Seward said even though this may be the end of Hobofest for him, it’s not the end of his music programming. He and his wife Karen Davidson also have their own music venue – Lake Flower Landing. Seward’s described it more like an intimate house show setting that can comfortably fit about 50 people.

“That’s where going to continue this creative outlet because truthfully I’m a compulsive programmer,” he said. “I want to bend people’s ears.”

For more information, visit online at hobofest.com.

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Music schedule

Noon – Open Jam hosted by Slow Jam

1 p.m. – Crackin’ Foxy (Saranac Lake)

2:15 p.m. – Resonant Rogues (Asheville, North Carolina)

3:30 p.m. – Baby Gramps (Seattle, Washington)

4:45 p.m. – Frankenpine (Beacon, New York)

6 p.m. – Dom Flemons with Mamie Minch (Washington, D.C. and Brooklyn, New York)

7:15 p.m. – Bucket Ruckus/ Biscuit Rollers (Saranac Lake)

8:45 p.m. – Blind Owl Band (Saranac Lake)