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While some fairgoers may be counting down the days until they can enjoy a corn dog and a lemonade shake-up, the Greene County Fair and the Martinsville Ag Fair are set to launch the county fair season this week.

“It’s promotion of agriculture. It’s bringing people in that are not familiar with agriculture to see what people in agriculture do,” said Greene County Fair Board Secretary Mark Walker about county fairs.

The Greene County Fair, May 27-31, is one of the oldest county fairs in Illinois, dating back to 1854. Harness racing, tractor pulls, a demolition derby and livestock shows remain fan favorites and will return this year.

“We have a lot of the people from the county and surrounding counties as well come in and see what we have to offer,” Walker told RFD Radio Network’s Jim Taylor. “They continue to come, which is why we have a legacy going back to 1854.”

Now in its 79th year, the Martinsville Ag Fair began May 25 and will run through June 1.

* The Question: With apologies to our Cook County friends, what are your favorite county fair memories?

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 8:50 am

Comments

When sheriff “Shorty” Long shut down the girlie show at the Farmer City Fair. It made the Trib.

Comment by Stix Hix Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 8:53 am
Not necessarily a great memory, but certainly a core memory is from the 2002 Sangamon County Fair. Myself and 2 buddies somehow found 3 beautiful dates to accompany us to an Aaron Tippen concert. Unfortunately, the 3 of us had to let our dates attend the show alone while we spent the entire evening in a muddy field changing my tire which got a hole in it when an old fence post ran through the sidewall. We quickly learned that it is impossible to jack up a car in a mud, but after lots of time in the Ag barns, we finally rustled up someone with a tractor to hoist the front of the car to change the tire. We finally finished just as the concert ended. We made our way into the fair, covered head to toe in mud and found our dates and buy them some corndogs. Somehow, those girls continued to go places with us for the remainder of the summer. They were some great girls.

Comment by Sun God Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:18 am
I fully believe some combination of Soldier Field and/or Grant Park should be permanent event space akin to urban fairgrounds. Obviously it would be ag-focused, but it should exist.

Comment by Homebody Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:19 am
No specific moments, but I will always have fond memories of the Sandwich Fair (Dekalb County).

Comment by Norseman Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:21 am
Watching a “hot rod” tractor pull for some reason and probably permanently damaging my hearing. Okay maybe “favorite” isn’t the right word.

Comment by Samantha Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:25 am
Marshall-Putnam used to host a draft horse competition. The final group was the six-horse pull. It was a sight to see.

Comment by Pot calling kettle Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:28 am
Years ago, I used to set up and manage an exhibit at the Sandwich Fair for my State agency. The people who ran the fair were a pleasure to deal with, and I was always a bit surprised at the number of Chicago families we would meet who came straight out Rt 34 to show their kids what animals looked like. Also the first fair I had been to that had all paved walkways (actually, one of the very few)

Comment by Behind the Scenes Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:31 am
My favorite memory is the Greene County Fair being late enough to actually show agricultural products grown that year. I used to clean up in 4-H and the open show.

Comment by Notorious JMB Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:33 am
==* The Question: With apologies to our Cook County friends, what are your favorite county fair memories?==

Not so fast, there’s gotta be someone under the dome who reads this who remembers, even if faintly, the last Cook County Fair in 1948.

Comment by Google Is Your Friend Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:34 am
Lil Wayne last year

Comment by hmmm Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:34 am
Me having a full fledged tantrum (age maybe 5) because I was told no to going on a ride theat would spin around and up and down. I did get my ride!

Another was my son talking about the”ghost sheep”. The sheep were wearing a cover to protect their fleece, and my son thought they were ghosts .

Comment by Banish Misfortune Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:36 am
Having a lemon shake up and a funnel cake then puking on the scrambler and my friends squirming to avoid the vomit puddle as the ride screamed to and fro.

Comment by A beetle Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:40 am
Gave my future wife an elephant ear on our first date at the 1986 State fair. We go back and visit the same stand every year!

Comment by Sine die Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:47 am
Behind the Scenes - that’s because it’s delightful.

Augie Otto’s train, Corky the Clown’s magic show, Sports Boosters pizza logs, James Gray running the Zipper, entering roses in the junior competition to earn winnings, seeing Porter Waggoner perform on Saturday night? The Sandwich Fair is the gold standard of county fairs.

Comment by Ambrose Chase Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:53 am
Anything automotive - stock car races, demolition derbies, tractor pulls. It’s also helpful when you know participants in those events. As a kid it elevated those neighbors and nearby farmers to heroic status to me.

Also, overweight children like me crave nothing more than a fresh-dipped corn dog.

Comment by Matty Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:58 am
WBEZ did a story in 2016 about the rise and fall of the Cook County Fair. The story includes a photo of a barn marked “1948 Cook County Fair”:

https://www.wbez.org/curious-city/2016/06/06/what-killed-the-cook-county-fair

Comment by Leatherneck Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 9:59 am
=Years ago, I used to set up and manage an exhibit at the Sandwich Fair for my State agency. The people who ran the fair were a pleasure to deal with, and I was always a bit surprised at the number of Chicago families we would meet who came straight out Rt 34 to show their kids what animals looked like. Also the first fair I had been to that had all paved walkways (actually, one of the very few)=

Since Southern Illinois looks at the DuQuoin fair as “their state fair” while the main show in Springfield seems to be more of a “Central Illinois state fair,” I have always considered the Sandwich fair to be at least one of the “number one contenders” for a “Northern Illinois State Fair” akin to DuQuoin. With Heart of Illinois Fair in Peoria and perhaps Marshall-Putnam Fair in Henry as other top contenders for that title.

Comment by Leatherneck Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 10:03 am
Just last year the Marshall-Putnam fair had Tracy Lawrence and Confederate Railroad. I needed a little time off for bad behavior.

Comment by Ducky LaMoore Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 10:12 am
Dear Secretary Costello:

Your sortable database of county fairs is awesome, but the sort-by-date does not actually work:

https://agr.illinois.gov/fairs/countyfairs/county-fair-schedule.html

My favorite memory of any county fair is running into a kid wearing a soccer jersey with my unusual last name on it. Turned out we had the same first name. And birth date. and lived 15 miles from each other.

Second best was taking my kids to their first county fair. But if its Wisconsin, does that still count?

Comment by Thomas Paine Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 10:16 am
When I was a kid and attended the LaSalle County Fair, the smell of the manure brought it home to me that the food I ate didn’t start as those sanitized, plastic-wrapped packages in the supermarket.

Farming can be a dirty, exhausting, nerve-wracking job. We take agriculture for granted, but during Covid, it was farmers, and the end of the chain, grocery stores, that kept us all alive.

Comment by Streator Curmudgeon Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 10:26 am
115 years ago attended a Thresheriee in Central Michigan. They had a “Carosell” The Carosell was suspended from a central post by ropes. After the kids were seated the carosell was twisted around the post. When let go the ride rotated back and forth until all the twisting energy was released. That was both fun and an insight into the past.

Comment by Peters Piece Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 10:59 am
=Your sortable database of county fairs is awesome, but the sort-by-date does not actually work:=

A simple fix to this problem would be to use YYYY-MM-DD format for both the fair start and end dates. And create separate columns for Start and End dates.

Why state agencies can’t figure out a simple problem that my non-IT background self (but have determined this on my own to get Excel and Access database sort functions to “behave” the way I want them to for years) came up with rather quickly is beyond me.

Comment by Leatherneck Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 11:06 am
Will County fair always delaying the start of school by growing up in Peotone. My parents helped run the Boy Scouts sweet corn stand. The smell of the grilled corn!!! Actually growing up in the 1980s there was actually farm machinery at the fair. Growing up on a farm and seeing all the new machinery was fun to see. My brothers and myself winning the pedal tractor polls. Great memories!

Comment by will county Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 11:52 am
=== A simple fix to this problem ===

Simple fixes are usually neither, especially in government.

Split the start dates and end dates into separate fields, make sure the fields are date types and you should be fine.

Also, let me know if you are hiring.

Comment by Thomas Paine Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 11:56 am
Taking son to Edgar County Fair and seeing it through his eyes.

Comment by jolietj Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 11:58 am
Eating a deep fried Oreo for the first time (it might still be digesting all these years later) and discovering the Pork Pavilion and the bacon-wrapped pork on a stick.

Comment by George Ryan Reynolds Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 12:26 pm
I only have one county fair memory: a blind date I took to that had a job as a health inspector. Every stand I visited to try and buy her a snack, she vehemently shook her head “no” to them all. She only consented to a canned soda at the end of it all. I remember getting down to some blues music on the stage and maybe my funky chicken dancing is what sealed my fate, but it was only one date.

Comment by Give Us Barabbas Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 1:22 pm
1993 State Fair. There was a food vendor who sold nothing but “melons” - watermelon, cantelope, & honey dew. You could get them solo or mixed.
Toddler daughter loved the place, even more than the “sweets” … .

Comment by Anyone Remember Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 2:03 pm
sadly an earlier — very funny comment — never made it. But for those who care Green County is due west of Carlinville. Martinsville AF is on I-70 northeast of Effingham.

Comment by Annon'in Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 2:12 pm
Watching the 4-H and FFA Kids show livestock and every year and how much the Kids change and mature.

Comment by Gary Wednesday, May 28, 25 @ 2:37 pm