Wednesday, August 27, 2008
It’s the most wonderful time of the year hereabouts
Mahoning County is rich with traditions and rituals. Some have their roots in the varied ethnic heritage of the Mahoning Valley, others in the labor history of the Steel Valley. But none reaches back so deep and in such an unbroken line as those of the Canfield Fair. In its 162nd year, Mahoning County’s fair dates to a day when Canfield was still the county seat and thousands of city and country folk made their way there by horse and wagon.
Each year, the Canfield Fair adds a few more tidbits to its history, and that addition process begins today and won’t end until 10 p.m. Monday.
The fair and the fairgrounds have seen just about everything, from Mazie, the county’s oldest horse at the 99th Fair in 1945, to dozens of newborn farm animals.
The fair has been buffeted by winds and heavy rains that blew away tents and flooded the grounds and parking areas. It has been shaken by social change. In 1959, a movement toward strict enforcement of the state’s Blue Laws threatened the fair’s Sunday operations. Later, an ardent attorney general challenged the legality of some of its midway games. In 1990, the board took a stand and refused to allow a tobacco company to give away snuff samples. In 1992, the board named its first female member, Kathy Bennett.
If you have it, politicians will come
Over the years, the fair has attracted hundreds of politicians, including governors and U.S. senators, and 94 years ago Gov. James Cox took a fall. More than 100 people clambered onto the wooden stage from which Cox was to speak causing it to collapse. Witnesses were quoted in the Sept. 10, 1914, Vindicator as saying it was a marvel that no one was seriously injured and Cox and Attorney General Timothy Hogan were described as “the coolest heads in the crowd following the crash.”
Some of the coolest entertainers in the land have taken to the grandstand over the years, ranging from the biggest names in early rock music to the latest names in country and western.
And the fair has seen its share of lovers. There was a wedding at the fair in 1946, a couple honeymooned in a tent in 1994 while working as parking lot attendants during the day and a golden wedding anniversary was celebrated in 2001. All those wedding connections make it only right that some 72,000 people set a world record for doing the Chicken Dance at the fair in 1996.
If that wasn‘t exciting enough, the fair has hosted aquatic and acrobatic acts, dare devil drivers in cars and on motorcycles and demolition derbies. The more things change — from horse pulls to tractor pulls — the more they stay the same. People enjoy the variety of entertainment the Canfield Fair has to offer.
Attendance may not be as strong now as it was in 1983, when more than a half-million people went through the gates, but it remains a place where urban, suburban and rural folks from not only Mahoning County, but the entire region, can come to be entertained, amazed and fed like royalty (assuming royalty subsist on the best french fires and sausage sandwiches known to Western civilization).
We recommend that you watch The Vindicator and Vindy.com for reports of daily events at the fair and get out to Canfield at least once or twice before Monday night.