Going Back Decades -- Even Centuries
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Here's a funny thing: Not one, but two of the region's fairs lay claim to having the deepest roots in American history.
Tracing its origins to 1765 -- "eleven years before the nation was founded," boasts the Web site of the old-timey York Fair -- the southeast Pennsylvania fair proclaims itself to be "America's first." But hold on. So does the Fredericksburg Agricultural Fair, whose own Web site advertises the event as the "oldest fair in the nation." (Established in 1738, I think the latter might have a slight edge over York, giving Virginia something else to brag about besides being the "birthplace of presidents.")
Such competing claims should surprise no one familiar with fairs, whose very reason for being can be traced to the act of tooting one's own horn. Nowadays, fliers for "insane" exhaust modification are just as likely to be on display as are prize pigs. In their earliest incarnations, though, fairs were organized to motivate farmers and their customers by hosting contests for the best livestock, produce or pie: "to infuse new life and vigor in agricultural pursuits in this county and awaken our farmers from the lethargy into which it would appear they have fallen," in the words of the Calvert Journal of Oct. 23, 1886, writing about that Southern Maryland county's inaugural fair.
As with the baby boom, the Washington area experienced a small explosion in county fairs in the years after World War II, with ones springing up in Montgomery, Howard, St. Mary's, Prince William, Fauquier and Anne Arundel between 1945 and 1952. Today, the local fair aficionado has a plethora to chose from, ranging from the quaint, small-town atmosphere of the Bluemont Fair in the foothills of the Blue Ridge to the more urban crowds, flashing lights and thumping, bass-heavy music that accompany the midway of the Montgomery County Fair, Maryland's largest.
Largest, maybe, but definitely not Maryland's oldest. That honor falls to neighboring Prince George's, founded a full century earlier, in 1842. (Again with the trash talk!)x
