Riding the Ferris wheel is the highlight of my Fair attendance each year.
Here’s how E. B. White described it in 1938 in One Man’s Meat:
“It was a fine clear day for the Fair this year, and I went up early to see how the Ferris wheel was doing and to take a ride. It pays to check up on Ferris wheels these days: by noting the volume of business one can get some idea which side is ahead in the world – whether the airborne freemen outnumber the earthbound slaves. It was encouraging to discover that there were still quite a few people at the fair who preferred a feeling of high, breezy insecurity to one of solid support. …
I like to watch the faces of people who are trying to get up their nerve to take to the air. You see them at the ticket booths in amusement parks, in the waiting room at the airport. Within them two irreconcilables are at war – the desire for safety, the yearning for a dizzy release. My Britannica tells nothing about Mr. G. W. G. Ferris, but he belongs with the immortals. From the top of the wheel, seated beside a small boy, windswept and fancy free, I look down on the Fair and for a moment was alive. Below us the old harness drivers pushed their trotters around the dirt track, old men with their legs sticking out stiffly round the rumps of horses. And from the cluster of loud speakers atop the judges’ stand came the “Indian Love Call,” bathing heaven and earth in jumbo tenderness.”
What I saw at my Fair in 2019 was a far cry from his description. It was a beautiful day, in the low 70’s and dry air, perfect for going to the Fair. We still have the horse barns and Standardbreds are still housed there, it has been more than a decade since there was any horse racing at the Fair.
There were a couple times in recent years they didn’t have a Ferris wheel. I wrote and complained to the Fair managers, and the Ferris wheel returned. Some years the tickets have been very expensive to ride it, up to $10, and the times around got much shorter. This year it was $3, but we only went around 5 times and there were only 7 other riders. No line to get on either.
In 1994 when my son was 3, his biggest thrill was the tents (note plural) of all kinds of farm implements and tractors that kids could sit on. Also notice that the cow barn behind him is full of dairy cows for 4-H and other judging.
These were the tractors this year. This is really sad, that so few farmers now attend the Fair that tractor companies no longer bring many tractors.
In the past you’d see families in large groups of stalls. They’d be nicely decorated too. This year there were only about 40 cows, spread out over the 2 inner barns. Maybe 10 farms represented. This year no families gathered; no decorations.
The Merry-Go-Round is another ride we check out each year. Some carnival companies have really nice horses and animals, and others are poorly cared for and not enticing. This is my dad in 1989.
This year’s Merry-G-Round from the Ferris wheel
For a beautiful Saturday afternoon, there are not many kids riding the Merry-Go-Round. But this is one of the poorly cared for ones, horses damaged, and not a lot of imagination in the decoration of them. And no other animals to ride, just horses.
We always check out the crafts and foods displays, to see what people we know have submitted and how they did. This flower display in 2000 is packed with submissions. This year, the flowers were spread apart widely, as there couldn’t have been 30 displays.
Outside the Roundhouse where adult crafts and foods are displayed, the scarecrow competition is set up. Some years there are dozens, and some really good ones, like this one from 2018. This year, just 2.
My helper friend lives near the Fair grounds and he enters his produce each year. He did really well this year, lots of blues. Last year he got Best of Show for his baby eggplants.
Each year, there are fewer and fewer entries. It’s really sad there are so few in the 4-H and Youth building. It was always fun to see the creativity of the kids’ displays.
But my favorite part of riding the Ferris wheel is looking out over the Fair, the town, and the valley.
These are the cattle sheds and the Entry Gate
The Grandstand and the infield of the track
The Roundhouse
Looking south down the valley
Looking southeast towards Deerfield
Looking southwest towards Shelburne
We’ve attended this Fair every year since 1974. In the last 10 years, I wonder each year if there will be a Fair the following year. When I was a child the Fair was a huge 4-H event, they even still had the Horse Show included. I remember the Dairy 4-H kids could get out of school to take their animals to the Fair. But as I aged out of 4-H, the Horse Show was separated and eventually ceased. The harness racing stopped.
We used to go to the Fireman’s Muster on Sunday afternoons. That’s no longer done. They still have the Horse and Oxen pulls on Saturdays and Sundays. There’s a parade down Federal and Main Streets to the Fairgrounds the Thursday still.
The biggest draw seems to be the Demolition Derbies. They even have one for kids now. That never held much appeal to me.
About the Fair:
“The very first Franklin County Fair was held in 1848 on the Greenfield town common with a cattle show. Today, 171 years later, we continue the tradition of live animal shows.”
Excerpt From:
The Franklin County Fair: As American as Apple Pie ~ by James Gildea, 2008
“For local gardeners, or for those folks with a small “cottage industry’’ down on the farm, the Fair quickly became a vehicle to show off their agricultural innovations, or the newest breeds of sheep, or their skill at baking the best apple pie, or their quilt-making (traditions that continue today), or locally produced, special cheeses. Cattle were ubiquitous on New England farms in the 19th century; usually the heavy Devon breeds that also performed most of the labor. ….
One of the putative “businessmen’’ who placed the first notice of the Fair in the Greenfield Gazette in 1848 was George Grennell… Grennell appears to have been an abolitionist who regularly worked with local people in the Underground Railroad - a thriving enterprise in Greenfield at mid-century. One of the people that Grennell worked with was Amos Newport, a man written about in a 1903 edition of the Greenfield Recorder with this headline : “Local Fair Owes Its Start To Old Negro.’’ (That article can be found at the Museum on the grounds of the Franklin County Fair.)
Amos Newport was the 77-year-old grandson of a man who had been a slave during the 18th century to Joseph Billings, a selectman in Hatfield. Newport’s contribution to the fair’s inception has been obscured by time, but history suggests he was, at the very least, the instigator for the Fair, as well as being a ‘’conductor’’ on the UGRR.”
From Wikipedia:
“The Franklin County Fairgrounds were established in 1865 (for a fair begun in 1848), they are among the oldest and best-preserved fairgrounds in the state, featuring an oval racetrack and a variety of exhibition and midway buildings.
The property is over 27 acres. The oldest building in the complex is called The Roundhouse; it is a two-story circular structure that is 72 feet in diameter. It features a conical roof and novelty siding. The entrance gates were built in a Mission style in 1917. The exhibition halls are long rectangular single story buildings. Most of the buildings on the fairgrounds were built before 1955.”
The Franklin County fair has been a big part of my life as well as serving as the anniversary date for my husband and I for 45 years. I do hope it finds new life and continues on.
Source: Fair: https://www.facebook.com/FranklinCountyFairGreenfield/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_County_Fairgrounds
