Schuylkill County Fair marks '40 Years of Growing the Future'

Jul. 29—SUMMIT STATION — A stroll through the Schuylkill County Agricultural Museum is a journey into the origins of the farming culture in the southern half of the county.

An authentic farmhouse kitchen and a massive 1906 Bessemer Gas Engine that fueled a rolling mill convey a story of dedication, vision and change.

Paul T. Kennedy, Schuylkill County Fair Association president, said the artifacts in the massive museum reflect an ongoing tradition begun in the early 1800s.

"This is about our agricultural heritage," Kennedy said during a recent tour. "It's about seeing where we came from."

When it opens Monday, the fair will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of its revival as a 4-H fair on the old county farm next to the Penn State Schuylkill campus in 1983.

A central theme of the current rendition of the fair is "40 years of Growing the Future," according to the fair's website.

After purchasing the land for $220,000, the fair has been held on the grounds of the former Happy Holiday Park on Route 895 east of Summit Station since 1987.

Though it has seen rough times, Kennedy said, the fair is in sound financial condition and has undertaken infrastructure improvements, including a new water supply and electric power grid.

Kennedy, who's been president for a decade, sees a bright future for the fair.

The secret, he says, is respecting tradition while changing with the times.

"You have to play to the audience," Kennedy said. "You have to keep your finger on the pulse of the times."

Storied history

The fair has a long, colorful and sometimes rocky history dating to 1851, 10 years before the Civil War.

In that year, Judge Jacob Hammer petitioned the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for authorization to hold a county fair on behalf of the Schuylkill County Agricultural Association.

Kennedy, who has a copy of the original petition, says a county had to have a fair for three years — then and now — before it could be state sanctioned.

In a recent Schuylkill County Historical Society newsletter, Patrick "Porcupine Pat" McKinney said the first fair was held on Jim Lessig's farm in North Manheim Twp. in 1852. He cited a Pottsville Republican article in 2008 as his source.

Given the three-year waiting period, Kennedy believes the first officially sanctioned fair might have taken place in 1854.

At any rate, the fair would move to Orwigsburg and, beset by financial problems, close in 1904.

It wasn't until 1923 that a group of investors, including brewery magnate Frank D. Yuengling, revived the fair on the Schuylkill County Fairgrounds in Cressona, now the site of Hydro-Extrusions North America.

An estimated 30,000 visitors showed up on opening day Sept. 3, 1923, Labor Day.

The fair left an indelible impression on children growing up in the "Roaring '20s."

Seventy years later, his childhood experiences were still fresh in the mind of 77-year-old William H. Strauch, of Cressona.

The first fair on that site, Strauch recalled in a Pottsville Republican story in 1993, was the fairest of them all.

The thing that stood out most for Strauch was how adventurous kids went over and under the fairgrounds fence to avoid paying the 50-cent admission fee.

Visitors came to the fair by trolley from as far away as Mauch Chunk (Jim Thorpe), and delighted in seeing an elephant do tricks on stage. There were rides on a Ferris wheel, vaudeville entertainment and exciting harness horse racing.

A record 62,000 persons visited the fair on Labor Day 1929, about seven weeks prior to the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression.

Kennedy found a 1931 reference where the fair bragged it had "the largest fairgrounds by area in the U.S., and the largest and fastest horse racing track east of the Mississippi."

The decline of trolley service, the Great Depression and the advent of World War II put an end to what might be called the Golden Age of the Schuylkill County Fair in the early 1940s.

Impressive connections

The title search on the Cressona property, conducted for the Federal Defense Corp. in July 1942, revealed fascinating information about the expansive Cressona tract.

In 1754, at the start of the French and Indian War, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania gave a patent on the land to James Boone, a Berks County relative of frontiersman Daniel Boone, the Republican reported July 29, 1942.

In 1785, James Boone conveyed the Cressona tract to Abraham and Anna Lincoln, Berks County relatives of President Abraham Lincoln, according to the paper.

In 1941, Union Bank & Trust Co. in Pottsville bought the Cressona tract at a sheriff's sale, the Republican reported. Adam V. Cresswell purchased it from the bank.

At the time, it was sold to the Federal Defense Corp., a subsidiary of the Depression-era Reconstruction Finance Corp. It was owned by Cresswell, the Schuylkill Navigation Co., the Reading Railroad and others, the Republican reported.

The final fair of that era was held Oct. 6-11, 1941.

As fate would have it, a defense plant would be built on the tract that supplied materials to armed forces in World War II.

After the war, the plant was sold to the Aluminum Co. of America, or Alcoa.

A family af-fair

Agriculture has undergone massive change in the last 40 years, but Paul Kennedy says one thing has not changed — families are the bedrock upon which the Schuylkill County Fair is built.

Descendants of the very people who built the fair, he says, are still exhibiting generations later.

"Families are a constant at the fair," Kennedy said, "and that's not changing."

Karl Jones, a former fair president, said it's definitely a family affair.

"One of the things I fell in love with was the families that have been here for generations," said Jones, 77, retired pastor of St. Mark's UCC in Cressona.

Jones lives in Douglassville, Berks County, but still comes back to volunteer at the fair.

As families arrived with livestock on Saturday morning, Bob Evanchalk said his Pine Grove family has been involved for generations.

His great-grandfather, Louis Herring, was an exhibitor. So was his grandfather, Jonathan Herring.

And his four grandsons — Zeke, Zane, Eli and Noah Holden — are all active fair exhibitors of beef, goats and sheep.

"Family is what makes the Schuylkill County Fair go," said Evanchalk, 72, a former fair vice president. "The fair wouldn't be here if it weren't for families."

Contact the writer: rdevlin@republicanherald.com; 570-628-6007