Dear Customers,
In this, the 33rd week of 2024, we welcome the 118th edition of the McKean County Fair to town. Those 118 years aren’t a consecutive string, however. The 1916 fair was cancelled due to a state quarantine and beginning in 1942 with the onset of World War II, there was a period of about 12 years where the fairgrounds sat idle. The fair of 1954 was the first after a long absence and opened on Labor Day! I didn’t attend that one, I was only about a week old. But I haven’t missed many if any, since.
The early years of the fair were concerned primarily with showcasing the county’s agriculture, so it was often held later in the year, after the fall harvest. After the advent of electricity, the focus of the fair soon switched to night-time entertainment and attendance spiked!
After you reach a certain age, the rides or games of chance hold little appeal. While I still enjoy strolling through the livestock exhibits, my primary interest is the food vendors. There once was a time many, many years ago that the only place I could get an Italian Sausage sandwich was once-a-year at the fair! Now, it’s available to me every day of the year! Costa’s Famous Italian Sausage is a staple of the Smethport Sports Boosters Booth and while, as I said, its easy for me to partake of, I still manage to enjoy one underneath the Grandstand along with some fresh cut fries and an ice-cold Diet Dew!
There are plenty of foods available at the fair that you really can only enjoy once a year. For instance, candy apples, fried dough, fresh pulled taffy, blooming onions and sno-cones to name a few. The ambient aroma of fried grease mixed with cinnamon, sawdust and horse manure is the Fair’s personal cologne! Somehow it just works together. . .