MELBOURNE FAIR IS 75 YEARS OLD
The president in 1985 was Rick McCracken who began in the society as an associate director. He stated that “the fair tries to offer a varied program of displays, events and competitions to interest all ages of rural and urban fairgoers. In this, the International Youth Year, we are encouraging the participation of young people in our community with: the baby show, school fair, junior fair, 4-H exhibits and our fair Queen.”
The fair queen competition was a relatively new addition to the fair. It started in 1977 when Kim McGeoch was named Miss Melbourne.
The Melbourne Fair was always held on or around Thanksgiving weekend until 1978 when it was moved to Labor Day weekend following several years of poor weather. The next few years the weather was better. It did change the exhibits a little. There were less fall crops entered but there were more flower exhibits to make up for it.
When the fair started it cost $1.00 for a membership to exhibit in the fair. It cost $2.00 in 1985 , but if you have a membership that gets you into the fair free. The admission cost for the first fair was 25 cents for adults and 15 cents for children and carriage parking was an extra 25 cents. In 1985 it costs adults $2.00 to get into the fair but children of public school age and under get in free and there is no cost for parking your horseless carriage.
Over the years the events of the fair have varied. In the early years a big attraction was the release of the Dowler hot air balloon which carried a cash coupon for their clothing store. Later there were airplane rides leading into the more modern helicopter rides.
A tractor pull was added along the way as well as a demolition derby but some events haven’t changed much. There are still baseball games and sports, log sawing contests and hog wrestling.
The eating facilities have changed. In the first fairs the church women put on the meals. The United Church and the Presbyterian Church ladies each had a large tent complete with wood stoves in which they served full course meals. In later years the United Church Women began using the basement of the school but that ended in 1962 when they began classes in the basement of the school.
Then came the hamburger and hot dog stands. When the Fairboard Building was constructed there was a modern kitchen added so that catering could be done. It was a couple of years before it was used to serve a full meal on Saturday at lunch time for a fee of $4.00.
The midway in the early years was mostly commercial. Businesses would display their wares and give away free samples. Bill Campbell of Melbourne remembers that when he was a young boy the trick was to get as many free samples as possible. One fair day he went home with seven razors, which he didn’t even need.
Seventy-five years later there were still displays set up by commercial businesses. But there were also rides and games of chance, candy apples, candy floss and sites to amaze.
More and more classes were added to the fair list as the years progressed. In 1985 there were 58 classes for horses and ponies, in 1946 there were 42 and in 1910 there were 38.
There were cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, grain, fruit, roots and vegetables, dairy produce and ladies’ work classed in the first fair.
There were no classes for children, cooking, flower arranging, photography, arts and crafts, ceramics or special classes for junior and senior citizens.
The fair progressed from a one day event, to a two day event, to a three day event which evolved.
{Transcript and Free Press}