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Fair a Place for People and Pigs
Fifty years after the fair was feted in “Charlotte’s Web,” pigs
are still a draw. |
What’s not to like
about the Blue Hill Fair? Perhaps even more than people identify the
town with music or the bay or healthy living, they consider the Blue
Hill Fair pure Blue Hill.
For one, it’s the
fair that “Charlotte’s
Web” made famous. Published exactly 50 years ago, the children’s
book recalls a pig’s account of a country fair—and the Blue Hill
Fair was it. After all, author E.B. White lived in neighboring
Brooklin.
The Blue Hill Fair
isn’t only how locals celebrate Labor Day. It is Hancock County’s
finest fair, a tradition known ’round the state forever.
It was old even
before E.B. White started going there and wrote his book in 1952.
This year’s fair, from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2, will be the 111th
edition.
As initiated by the
Hancock County Agricultural Society, the fair’s first year was
officially 1891. Agriculture fairs, at the end of summers, were
quite the occasion. But even before the initiation of the formal
Blue Hill Fair, a Farmer’s Club had been gathering in Blue Hill for
a livestock show for more than a decade before.
They had met as
early as the mid-1870s at Tucker’s Field in town. It became an
official fair in 1891 at Tucker’s Field, then moved the next year to
Mountain Park, where it has been held ever since.
The fairgrounds are
one of the first points of interest you pass coming in on the
Ellsworth Road. Empty the rest of the year, the grounds brim with
farmers and fairgoers for this single Labor Day weekend.
It is
old-fashioned, all right.
Truly an annual
revival, the fair has harness racing, but no betting on the horses.
There is cattle judging, ox-pulling, 4-H exhibits and, since the
1960s, a midway full of rides.
There are also
sheep dog trials, displays of fruits, vegetables and canned goods,
honey and poultry. There are a pig scramble, cooking contests,
demonstrations, a flower show, plus arts and crafts.
There is also the
Razor Crossman Sportsmanship Award, which goes to a 4-H member from
Hancock County.
Some of the rules
of the game, according to the fair program: “The 4-H member should
always be willing to greet people and answer any question they may
have … the judges check to see who is willing to help another 4-H
member with his or her chores.”
No wonder all
promotional material refers to the Blue Hill Fair as a
“down-to-earth country fair.” |
