More than meets the eye: the rooster, rock and cow

By ASHLEY LUTHERN

Two Canfield Fair landmarks have been stolen multiple times.

1She climbed to the top of the rock at the Canfield Fair and came back down, completely unaided.

“I’ve tried to climb it every year for a while now,” said the 11-year-old from Boardman.

The 50-ton boulder that sits in the center of the fair near the grandstand has become a focal point of the fair, a popular meeting spot and childhood right of passage.

“It’s a major feat for kids to get up there,” said Erin Blume, Ireland’s mother. She was waiting at the rock to meet friends and family.

“It’s tradition to say, ‘Meet you at the rock,’” Blume said. “We used to meet at the rooster [statue on the grandstand], but the kids like the rock better. If anyone in our group gets lost, we just head to the rock and meet them there.”

The theme for this year’s Canfield Fair is “Rock Around the Rock” to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the rock’s location.

“In 1958, William Kilcawley spotted the top half of that rock in what is now the immediate parking area,” said Judge James Evans, fair board president. “He thought it would be 12 tons and hired a company to move it, but in fact it was 50 tons.”

Kilcawley, a Youngstown industrialist and philanthropist, had the rock moved by the G.F. Howard Construction Co. to the center of the fairgrounds and hired an Oberlin College geology professor to study it.

The professor, Dr. Reuel B. Frost, determined that the rock was deposited by a glacier 18,000 to 20,000 years ago and that it had traveled at least 500 miles to its present location, based on the anorthosite, a type of gabbro (a dark, coarse-grained rock), that he found.

Only sandstone, shale and limestone are found naturally in the Mahoning Valley and the nearest kind of gabbro in the rock can be found north of Toronto, Canada.

“This rock was something to be looked at,” Judge Evans said. “It’s a focal point of the fair. Everyone says at least once, ‘Meet you at the rock.’”

Less than 100 yards away stands another fair landmark atop the ticket booth at the grandstand. The gleaming rooster on his perch at least 20 feet in the air visually represents the fair’s “something to crow about” motto and is another meeting spot.

Jennifer Uhrin, 11, was waiting with her family to meet friends under the rooster.

The rooster is higher in the air and easier for people new to the fair to see, she said.

The fair mascot makes an appearance on the roof only during the Canfield Fair and is stored in barn at the fairgrounds during the rest of the year. It is bolted securely on its high perch, but that has not deterred prank thefts.

“The rooster is a fair icon,” Judge Evans said. “Even though it’s been stolen several times, it has always been returned to the fairgrounds.”

The 125-pound fiberglass cow outside of the dairy barn at the fair has not been so lucky.

“One year, during the night, someone put her up on the roof of one of the barns,” said Howard Moff, fair board member and director of cattle entries. “Another year, she was taken and found later on the side of Route 11 in Trumbull County. We frown on all of this.”

The cow doesn’t have an official name, but was installed as a novelty about 20 years ago.

“I’ve seen seven kids squish onto that cow to have their picture taken,” Moff said. “It’s unique.”

The cow’s back right leg had a crack in it that has been repaired, but Moff tied a red bandage around it to have a story for the children who come to see the milkings at the barns.

“I just tell people when they ask that she’s got a sore leg,” he said.