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Fair Made for Fond Memories
 Exactly
when the Eastbrook Fair started, and when it ended, isn’t clear
anymore. The locals can’t remember.
But for the years
it ran, certainly in the 1940s and 1950s, the Eastbrook Fair was the
biggest around. Using the fairgrounds next to where the Greenwood
Grange hall still stands, the fair ran for two days in early
September.
The Eastbrook
School was closed so the kids could attend the fair. Also closed
were the high schools in Franklin and Ellsworth, where the older
students went.
Harry Joy, followed
by Leland Merchant, worked for years as the fair secretaries. Both
are now deceased.
“Those men once
estimated that the fair drew about 20,000 people,” said Madelene
Merchant, Leland’s wife who lived in Eastbrook until last year.
“I don’t know if
those numbers are accurate, but it really did flourish for quite a
number of years.”
Catherine Bragdon,
the niece of Harry Joy, says she worked for about 40 years at the
fair.
“It was packed, my
gosh,” Bragdon recalled. “It was huge. I lived right across from it,
and they had to make more room for it.”
Bragdon believes
that the height of the fair were the years when a Mr. Coffin brought
his midway rides in from Bangor. But after his death in the late
1950s, another man took over the Eastbrook operation, reducing it to
one day only. After that company decided one-day fairs weren’t worth
the trip, the fair died out in the early ‘60s.
But it was grand.
There was a merry-go-round, Ferris wheels, games, food, exhibits and
Beano tents. And, for patrons who paid a bit more, there was a
separate tent to see the hootchy-kootchy girls.
Cars parked all the
way up the road, ensuring that all fair-goers walked long distances.
“Those days it was
safe enough that we let our children wander around without thinking
anything about it,” Bragdon said.
These days, the
fair is long gone—it’s been close to 40 years. |
