On warm fall days, Sunday picnics were a natural way to while away an afternoon. For the families that gathered on the clay field south of Imlay City in 1894, it was a time to enjoy friends and perhaps place a good-natured bet on the horse and buggy races staged among the group. “Families, like my wife and I, we’d go down on Sunday afternoon with our horse and buggy and have a picnic – maybe 10, 15, 25 families. Then I’d say to the other guy, ‘well, my horse can beat your horse.’ So they made a racetrack around the picnic ground.” Said Harold Muir, historian for the Imlay City Historical Society. So regularly did these outings occur that the property was soon purchased jointly by these families. “They bought this piece of property just as community property where people could go and have baseball games. And they’d have the buggy races in the afternoon – one couple against another. “Then in 1896, it started to draw people so they decided they’d form the Imlay City Agricultural Society.” Muir said. The first fair was Oct 7-9, 1896 . “It was just a day fair – no night fair at all. They dug a well and that was where you got water.” Muir said. “All the attractions – the midways and everything – were held in the middle of the racetrack.” In the southwest corner stood barns for cattle and sheep while on the other side was a pond for ducts and geese. Lunches were brought to the fair by visitors who picnicked beside their buggies on blankets or benches. An article in the Imlay City Times on Oct 2, 18 96 , read: “The program for the first Fair included plenty of legitimate amusements, such as horse races, bicycle races, baseball, bands, etc.” About 1920 the north half of the fairgrounds was bought as fair property. In 1933 the fair was chartered as the Lapeer County Agricultural Society. No fairs were held during the war years of 1944-45. The fair has seen good and bad times during its 87 years. In 1951 R. A. Grettenberger and Muir took over management of the fair. “The fair had gone broke.” Muir said. An $8,000 mortgage on the fair had been “tossed around” from one party to another “and they couldn’t even pay the interest on it. “Grettenberger figured the experience my wife and I had had on the road with the carnival – then 2 years with the circus – well, he thought I knew more about this business than anybody in the town.” Muir said. At that time, it was called the Imlay City Fair. At a State Fair Board meeting in the early 1950’s, Muir and Grettenberger proposed a name change to Eastern Michigan State Fair. But the board would only OK the Eastern Michigan Fair. “When the fair was on, Lapeer schools would shut down for one day – North Branch and Capac – each one of them had a day and that’s what drew the people – people from all over came here. October’s fair became September’s fair and finally with nights so cool, it was moved to August in the early 1950’s. Warmer evenings made the fair more successful until 1954 when it rained for 5 days. The big shows bring in the people but you need the people to pay for the big shows, said Bob Jurn, member of the fair board. He remembers 1978 as an especially good year with 26,000 paid attendance and traffic “lined up at 9:30 trying to get in.”
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For More Fairgrounds, Fair and Imlay City history,
visit the Imlay City Historical Society. 77 Main Street |
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