From the street, the headquarters of the Country Stampede looks like a mom-and-pop shop, squished between two restaurants in an out-of-the-way strip mall.

The festival’s protagonist is a portly, soft-spoken country boy with wispy, silver hair – hardly the figure one would expect as the mastermind of a music festival that has grown into one of the nation’s largest.

The Stampede, which starts today and runs through Sunday, is expected to draw about 150,000 sun-baked revelers to the Great Plains and for one weekend fill an otherwise sleepy college town with vendors, mullets, mechanical bulls and guitar riffs.

Wayne Rouse, whose vision more than a decade ago spawned one of Kansas’ biggest tourism draws, shrugs his shoulders.

“We are what we are,” he said.

Few can argue the Stampede’s success, but it was never guaranteed. Even Rouse admits he faced enormous challenges in the summer of 1995, when he committed his future to an idea hatched in a Wisconsin field.

After years of working as a liaison between county fairs and entertainers, Rouse happened upon the Country Thunder festival in rural Twin Lakes, Wis., where thousands had shown up to watch Tim McGraw on a Sunday night. Despite having little capital, Rouse said to himself, “I have to bring one of these to Kansas.”

The Manhattan community, home to Kansas State University, bought into his idea, despite disrupting the otherwise peaceful summer months in between semesters. Rouse then called upon a venture capitalist buddy to provide financial backing for an endeavor he knew would struggle early on.

“Some advice I received from a friend was you’re going to lose money the first three years – and he was right,” Rouse said. “The first year we lost over a quarter of a million. But I was told if I lost less than half a million, it would be successful. And each year it gets a little better.”

It helps that Rouse has been able to lure some of the nation’s top performers to Tuttle Creek State Park, more than two hours from the nearest major airport and 20 miles off Interstate 70.

Headlining this year is Country Music Assn. Vocalist of the Year Gretchen Wilson, Entertainer of the Year nominees Toby Keith and Brad Paisley, and Female Vocalist of the Year nominee Sara Evans. Several dozen others will join them on multiple stages, the music starting about noon each day and going deep into the night.

“The owners and the folks on the inside of Country Stampede were visionaries with this,” said Karen Hibbard, director of the local visitor’s bureau. “The entertainers see fans are willing to come two hours from a major airport. They’re willing to drive, to stay in the heat and the rain and the mud to see an entertainer. Somehow, this works.”

The novel festival is now big business for a state that ranks near the bottom nationally in tourism, according to the Travel Industry Association of America, a Washington, D.C.-based industry group.

Rouse estimates that fans who’ll clog the winding county roads leading into town will generate about $13 million for the local economy, affecting everything from food and lodging to law enforcement officials issuing speeding tickets to overly anxious fans.

The town’s 847 hotel rooms sold out months in advance, and merchants are stocking everything from raincoats to sunscreen. The state has even spent lottery proceeds on promoting the Stampede across the Midwest.

“I think that’s a testament to the event itself,” said Becky Blake of the Kansas Department of Commerce, who helped nurture the festival in its infancy. “I remember early on what a huge, huge undertaking this would be. There is a real commitment to the region.”

In an era of major corporations orchestrating blockbuster, multimillion dollar tours, the Stampede is an inviting alternative for country music fans. The campground, within earshot of the stage, nearly fills its 2,400 sites with college kids in flimsy tents and retired country bumpkins in big RVs, coexisting in a temporary city that can range from folksy and friendly to downright rowdy.

There are constant rumblings that the festival eventually will move to a more metropolitan location – closer to hotels, airports and all of the things that could take the country out of the Country Stampede. Rouse dismisses such talk.

“It’s kind of a little country Woodstock,” he said, pointing to an original poster from the famed 1969 festival on his office wall. “I don’t brand it as that, but it’s just a great place for people to get together.”