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History of the Adams County Fair On May 6, 1872, the spring after the county was organized, thirty-nine men met to establish a fair. They held the fair at Kingston near Pauline and the Little Blue river. It was so well attended and so much enthusiasm was displayed that even those who had doubts in the beginning were convinced of the soundness of the idea. At the first fair, one white bull, several hogs, and some sod corn were on display. From then on for the next several years, the site of the fair was controversial. For two years, it was held on the prairie between Juniata and Hastings. Then it moved to the town of Juniata. After the county seat moved to Hastings in 1878, the fair also moved to Hastings and was called a District Fair. ( Juniata held fast, however, and staged its own fair for awhile.)
March 29, 1886 fire in the stalls of a barn at the fairgrounds burned five horses to death, and a trainer who had tried to lead the horses to safety died of his burns the next day. The depression and drought of the 1890's put an end to the fair. The Agricultural Society had to morgage the property and eventually the mortgage was foreclosed. In the late 1890's, there were street fairs and carnivals: in 1906, a Central District Fair Association was formed, and in 1907, a frontier festival-patterned after the Cheyenne rodeo-was staged. A few years later the festival became a "Harvest Jubilee," with a crowning of a king and queen at a ball held at Ingleside. By 1915, the festival was known as the South Platte Exposition. In 1921 a new county fair organization was set up and land was purchased at Burlington avenue and 14th street for the revival of the old Adams County Fair. In 1922, a total of 30,000 persons attended the first three days of the fair, according to the newspapers of the day. Six buildings had been erected, the grandstand, agricultural hall, race horse barn, and livestock barns for horses, cattle and swine.The next year, more buildings were put up, and again in 1925, fair attendance totalled more than 60,000 persons each year. During the 1930's, the years of drought and croplessness, the fair board struggled. 1932 was the year of the electrical exposition, an extravaganza designed to show off Hastings as one of the largest municipally-owned electric plants in the United States. The most magnificent display of all was the electrical fountain with colored lights and jets of water changing in a seemingly endless performance, erected by Water and Light Department in front of the bandstand. When the fair was over, the fountain was moved from the fairgrounds to Highland Park, at 12th and Denver, where it has been located ever since. In 1934, it eliminated gate admission in an effort to draw crowds. By 1938,1939 and 1940, the Depression had lifted enough that attendance sky-rocketed, and livestock displays reached new heights. During World War II, the fair was cancelled, a garden show at the city auditorium being substituted to conserve gasoline and other scarce commodities.The garden show featured displays of grain, vegetables, flowers and canned goods; these were the years of the Victory Gardens, and there was much competition to see who could grow the biggest radish or turnip. In 1945, at the conclusions of the war in Europe, the fair was re-instated at the old location on Burlington avenue, with exhibits by 4-H members, vocational agriculture students, and Boy and Girl Scouts. From then on, as special breeders' groups began to hold specialized shows of their own-Quarter Horses, Angus cattle, and others-the role of Open Class diminished, and gradually, through the years, the fair has become more and more of a 4-H club activity. In 1950, the High school board began negotiating for the site of the fairgrounds for the location of the proposed new senior high school, and eventually bought it. For a year or two after that, the Adams County Fair was held at Lib's Park, north of 14th street on the west side of Baltimore avenue, before that site was acquired as a part of the municipal park system. On June 11, 1951, the Adams County Fair Board purchased 40 acres of land at the junction of Highway 6 and 281 southwest of Hastings, bordering on South Baltimore Avenue. Owner of the land previously was Frank Kealy, who donated some of it to the Fair Board. A race-track was laid out, grandstand erected, and in the next few years, other buildings were constructed, some of them brick, some of Quonset-type metal construction. The brick structure known as the 4-H activities building was erected in 1955 at a cost of $40,000. After the fair moved its location to the southwest part of town, the type of exhibits gradually changed, so that over the years, Open Class exhibits dwindled in importance. By the mid-1950's, the exhibits of livestock, sewing and cooking, and others, became exclusively 4-H entries, restricted to youngsters who participated in 4-H club activities. Evening entertainments during the county fair week have varied over the past score of years. For a number of years, rodeos were presented, some of them single outfits, and for four years, those from the ( Rodeo Corp. of America), the In 1972 entry to the county fair became free, and the only revenue came from the sale of tickets to grandstand performances. Attendance in the 1970's estimated 6,000 persons attending the fair in a single evening, although not all attended the grandstand performances. The fairgrounds were used at other times than during fair week. Various horse shows were held there throughout the year - there was a revival in interest in raising and riding pleasure horses. On a regular basis, stock-car racing was held there, attracting thousands of spectators. Articles from the Adams County Historical Society
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On August 6, 1878 the Hastings Fair Grounds Association was incorporated. The corporation issued 300 shares at $10 per share, and purchased a fourty-acre tract of property. The tract lay between 3rd. and 7th. street and California and Elm avenues. A pavilion for the exhibition of agricultural and horticultural products was built and provision made for the exhibition of livestock. Around the grounds a race-track was built, and horse-racing , a favorite sport of pioneers, was the feature of the annual show. But in 1884, the land was sold and the District Fair went out of existence, a new association was organized, and land was purchased in the northwest of town.
In 1926, professional automobile races and fireworks displays were offered for the first time. In addition, horse races, a perennial favorite,were also held. In an eight-year period during the 1920's the Adams County Fair took the leadership among all county fairs in Nebraska in both attendance and exhibits. During the 1923 fair, for example, one of the exhibits was a cow carved from between 500 and 600 pounds of butter; it was fashioned by J.E. Wallace of Hastings, a professional butter-carver whose works were usually created for state fairs or national dairy shows. It was held in a specially prepared refrigerator packed with 2,700 pounds of ice.
professional organization which awards points for rodeo performers. Calf-roping, bulldogging, bronco-busting and other competitive performances raised the dust in the ring. One year, in an effort to boost gate-receipts, the fair booked James Drewry, star of the television show "Laramie" as a guest performer; he distinguished himself by falling off his horse in front of the grandstand; another year, Slim Sherman, also an actor in television westerns, was a guest performer. But the cost of presenting professional rodeos - involving chuts, fences, stands, and a great deal of livestock - was disproportionate to the amount of revenue collected at the gate, and by the late 1960's, the Fair Board turned to stock-car racing for its evening performances.
