If two years of lockdown from the COVID pandemic taught us anything, it’s that we love to be together, to gather in community, to celebrate our history and our traditions. And that’s about to happen across Colorado as we head into county fair season.
The history of the county fair goes WAY back, into biblical times. Then, cities were located far apart without the transportation systems we enjoy today. So, when people gathered for large religious events, there were also frequently large commercial gatherings focused on trading goods. Indeed, the Latin root of the word “fair” means “a holiday with feasting” (and, indeed, I recall the food from the county fairs of my youth as an almost religious experience of feasting on BBQ…).
Fast forward to 1807 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where Elkanah (a name that apparently never caught on) Watson hosted what is believed to have been the first American fair, consisting of only sheep-shearing demonstrations. The first American state fair was held in 1841 in rural upstate New York — a showcase for recipes, agriculture, and the domestic arts. Three decades later, in 1872, the Colorado State fair began in Pueblo.
It was almost a century after that, in the 1960s, that my own memories of fairs were laid down. We lived about 5 miles outside a town of 200 people in rural Illinois. At that time, virtually every little community had a 4-H club made up of the children from all the families on all of the little farms (400 acres was pretty sizeable in those days of the 2-row tractor-towed corn picker) that surrounded each little town. Summer 4-H softball was huge, in part because, post-Little League, farm kids had to go to town to play baseball. But 4-H softball was every Wednesday evening — and it was a thing. Teams (clubs) developed reputations and rivalries (mostly healthy), and – shockingly — huge picnic spreads were laid out by the home team. 4-H without good food? Unheard of! These were almost mini-fairs in terms of exhibiting and judging outdoor cooking and eating.
And then there was the county fair. To a kid who got excited when the vet truck rolled onto the farm (or the rendering truck), this fair was 100% pure magic. There was the arrival of the carnival and its set up, where this wonderland of rides and games literally exploded out of the prairie. There was the load-in of the animals and exhibits — more traffic than most of us ever saw. We got to spend the night on folding cots in the livestock barns — and generally nothing went wrong (although my memories are of life being lived right on the edge…). Our parents gave us pocket money — unheard of! And packets of ride tickets.Youcould buy and consume soda pop — in the morning! Showing livestock, displaying ribbons, wandering the exhibits, climbing on the displays of all the newest farm machinery. There were tractors with cabs! And machines designed only for harvest — “combines,” they were called, and all of our dads just stared at them. And all too soon…it was load-out day. And back on the farm the next day, everything seemed so quiet that you wondered if your ears had been damaged at the fair.
Once in a blue moon, one of my brothers or I was selected to take a project to the State Fair. Words fail me if I attempt to recall driving several hours (unheard of!) to the State capital of Springfield and spending a night in a hotel. I don’t recall nearly so much of that. I think it was such a BIG experience for my little brain that it was simply too much to try and store away so it washed over me and was gone, almost like a dream.
One of the side effects of nostalgia is that it leaves a little melancholy in its wake. The world didn’t stay in the early 1960s and if we jump forward to today, we arrive at a time when many visitors to fairs are not there to exhibit or judge or exchange agricultural practices. They come for the entertainment, and for seeing what they have come to think of as a slice of history since, for many of them, their connection to food and agriculture is now limited to visits to Safeway or King Soopers. And that’s an interesting sensation for many of us who have our roots in agriculture or continue to work in the industry…still out there feeding the world, sustaining the land, and trying to make a living to support our families.
But whether for rural families or those growing up in urban and suburban areas, fairs still have a powerful impact. While people are at county and state fairs, they are exposed — all around them — to evidence that their food wasn’t born pre-packaged onto grocery store shelves. Maybe they’re there for the great music performances or the rides, but they also stroll past exhibits and demonstrations that remind them, possibly subconsciously, that the BBQ they’re enjoying was once on the hoof. In an important way, our fairs can, at a minimum, stimulate curiosity that can lead to improvements in ag literacy.
Every year I was president at CSU, we’d do a little tour around the state, visiting our employees in Extension offices and Agricultural Experiment Stations and the Colorado State Forest Service who really are the face of CSU in so many communities. In my second year as president, I had the brilliant idea to visit during the local fairs. I may have had stupider ideas, but it’s hard to think of one off the top of my head. Come into a county agent’s life at the busiest time of the year and ask them to show you around and chat about how things are going? Well, it actually turned out well because the agents just chuckled and ignored me. They’d always assign some wonderful young 4-Her to show me around the fair (admonished, I imagine, not to let me get into any trouble). If you want to feel more optimistic about the future, spend time with a 4-H kid. Doctors should prescribe that.
And most of those kids come from families that are farming and ranching. In different ways, for sure. Some come from multigenerational operations the size and scope of which I have trouble wrapping my head around. Some have parents who have a day job but who know that “hobby farming” isn’t easy. But they come from places that have made the choice to produce food. And they gather at fairs and shows, as people have since biblical times, to demonstrate the fruit of their labor, sometimes to sell it, to learn what’s new, and to celebrate with others in a tradition dating back millennia.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Fairs began bringing human beings together. They still do. Fairs celebrated agricultural commerce. They still do. Fairs were meant to inform and to entertain. They still do. Fairs mattered to the pulse and cycle of life in small communities — and larger ones. They still do.
Get out to your county fair this summer and see for yourself.
– tony
Tony Frank, Chancellor
CSU System
This message was included in Chancellor Frank’s July newsletter. Click here to subscribe to the Chancellor’s monthly letter.