Memories of the Fayette County Fair

Fayette County Fair memories are some of the earliest for many of us who were born and reared here in Central Texas, and fond ones they are, indeed. What an important celebration of community via carnival, agriculture, business, foods, flowers and plants, music and other entertainment, and maybe (for the adults) a beer or two. Every Labor Day weekend we younger kids all looked forward to early school release on Fridays so we could go enjoy the biggest event of our lives other than Christmas or our own birthday.

In my childhood years, we mostly looked forward to endless carnival rides: bumper cars, the Ferris wheel, the carousel, the little train or airplanes that flew around in a circle, or the Tilt-o-Whirl. Not ever being one that resistant to dizziness, I fear I ended up sick at some point almost every year, especially after eating all that cotton candy on top of the ice cream. If I recall right, there were sometimes rodeos and baseball games during the Fair.

But some of the most memorable times of all at the Fair were the special events or entertainments that were sometimes part of the program: horse races, helicopter rides, performances by acrobats or high-wire acts, (like the flying trapeze or tight-rope walking.) The Fayette County Fair Association (founded in 1927) always seemed to dream up something that would amaze and confound the audiences for several nights.

When school got out early on Friday for the fair, my grandparents would take us to the Fair, and Mom and Dad would join us after work. Dad was on the Fair Association board for a number of years, but even before that, because he worked for the City of La Grange, which owns the Fair Park, he was more or less “on duty” during the Fair’s run. I think he would say his biggest challenge in the early days (the 1950s) was managing the parking and the problems associated with rainfall events during the Fair. For years and years in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Fair itself seemed to bring on a big rainfall event, and after a dry summer, everyone would say, “Just wait: when the Fair gets here, we’ll get some rain.”

An inch or two of rain in those days meant people got stuck in the huge grass area used as the parking lot, and tractors and city-owned trucks, as well as Precinct 1 County vehicles and their drivers, would be needed to haul cars out of the boggy, muddy field. Those were the days before the lots were graveled, and so it was a genuine challenge to get everyone home after a heavy downfall that came in the evening or early night. There were even nights when some cars weren’t pulled out until the next morning: people would get a ride with neighbors and come back the next day to dig their cars out of the mud-field.

Another challenge was keeping the electricity on, when carnival rides were fully operating, lots of fans were plugged in everywhere, and cookers were turned on, and amplifiers were set up, and air-conditioners were running. Circuits would short out, and over-loads would cause power outages where folks really needed electricity to make events happen and make the attendees, who had paid their admission fees, happy. And there were certainly plumbing issues as well when water lines and sewer lines got clogged up somewhere or other.

In any case, for Dad, the best Fair Day was always the Last Day of the Fair, for the entire City of La Grange and Precinct 1 crews (street-and-bridge folks, water works people, and electrical specialists) all sometimes needed a day of vacation to get caught up on sleep. Happily, by noon on Labor Day, the Fair was usually history, so there was at least a half-day to be at home and relax before heading back to a normal day of work on Tuesday at 8 a.m.

Thank you, Fayette County Fair Board members, fair volunteers, City and County workers who make the fair an event to remember for thousands of children, men, and women. Without all of you, none of the rest of us would be making more terrific memories at the 2025 Fayette County Fair, “Always Labor Day Weekend.”