Fayette County Fair

In the history pamphlet published in 1953 for Ohio's Sesqui-centennial, the Fayette County committee researched the beginning of the county's fair. 

They wrote that the original fairground was located on the east side of the city in 1859.   After the grounds were no longer used for fairs, shows and circuses were held there including 'Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show" with William F. Cody and Annie Oakley. 

In 1886 a new fair was begun on the present location and was held Tuesday through Saturday, October 5-9 that year.

This postcard shows the fairgrounds in 1909.  My grandmother, Maude Post Rankin, identifies herself and friend, Bertha Briggs, in the foreground towards the left under the black umbrella. 

The 1953 history identifies three main buildings on the grounds: the Grand Stand, the Art Hall, and the Fruit Hall and that only the Grand Stand remained by that year. 

The building in the left background is not known to me but perhaps to another reader.  Please leave your comment if you can identify this building.

And good luck to this year's exhibitors!!

http://www.fayettecoagsociety.com/

The 1976 Tour of Fayette County

In 1976 four members of the South Central Ohio Preservation Society* organized a tour of Fayette County homes and landmarks. They borrowed a bus from the Boy Scouts and headed out to show 40 locations to those who signed up to join them.

Those four people were  B.E. Kelley, Kenneth Craig, George Robinson and my mother, Jane Rankin. **

I knew them all, some better than others, and I can imagine them that day as the most entertaining tour guides, telling anecdotes and answering questions from their vast, collective knowledge. They handed out a listing of the tour sites and a hand-drawn map (shown above) with comments; in some cases detailed and in others just a short note about each stop along the route that they had worked together to create.

They started at the court house, of course. They ended up at the Fayette County Museum where guests were served cider and cookies. They looked at homes and cemeteries. Their notes say they stopped at the last remnants of an old toll house (sadly not marked on the map), an old barn (also not marked), a schoolhouse converted into a motel, and pointed to locations where structures were long gone such as the double covered bridge that was torn down in the 1930’s.

I plan on re-tracing their tour route to see if I can find all their landmarks and in future postings will list all 40 tour stops. Please add your comments about these or any sites you feel should be part of a tour of Fayette County landmarks.

If you have old photos that you would like to have posted on this blog, please e-mail your submission to fayettehistory@gmail.com.




*Founded in 1966, the mission of SCOPS is to preserve the natural and cultural history in the South Central Ohio area.


** At the time, Mr. Kelley, Mr. Craig and Mr. Robinson were Fayette County Historical Society board members and my mother would also later become a board member. However, for this tour, it appears they were organizing this tour as a SCOPS project.

Happy Independence Day 2010

This photo of my grandfather Rankin is from the June 1902 issue of the Washington High School literary publication, the Argus. 

That year Harry was a senior, editor-in-chief of the Argus, and member of the track and debate teams.

His contribution to the Argus was a long political and social essay on the rise and fall of various countries concluding with his fervently felt patriotism:

" ... Courage in war, and a love of personal freedom have always been a noticeable characteristic of the American people and this alone has been her dream.  It was germinated by oppression, cherished by the liberty-loving people, rocked in the Mayflower and firmly planted on the stern bosom of Plymouth Rock. 

We may search the pages of ancient history; we may study the motives of contemporaries, we may prophesy the future of any nation and we will fail to find any with higher ideals, with nobler efforts or with a brighter future than those of the United States, and her dream is Freedom!"