The Plymouth Fair

The year was 1886, nearly a full year before the Plymouth Mail, Plymouth's first newspaper is published. It is two months before Coca-Cola will be invented and tried for the very first time and three before Grover Cleveland will make history by being the only president to get married in the White House. The small community is made of farms, a town center, the Daisy Windmill company and the railroad, which has a station in the more built up portion of the town.

In April of that year T.C. Sherwood, J.M.Collier and L.C.Hough formulated and became officers in the Plymouth Fair Association. It was a stock company with a starting capital of $1,200. This new company quickly acquired 22 acres of property, not far from some of the Kellogg's property, in the southeastern portion of the village of Plymouth. This put them walking distance from both the train station and the frowning area around Kellogg's Park.

They built a wooden barricade around the property, with a gate facing what is now Ann Arbor Trail. From the road you could see the rails to tie your horses, if you travelled on them, the large race track, a kept picnic area and a place for vendors and showmen. Family admission was $1. The first fair was held that September and it was a huge success.

In 1903, the Association held its last fair on the grounds. Eventually they sold the land to developers and by 1920 the first houses started to appear. As the grounds and the fence gave way to homes and streets, they needed to give these places names. The street which would have been under the Plymouth Fair Association sign, had they existed at the same time, became Fairground. The street which branched off of Fairground, going toward the railroad track and being placed just where the south end of the race track ended, became Fair.

Today, you can come onto these grounds from a variety of directions and the history which was there is almost undetectable. If you enter from Maple street though, you get to this spot where you look left on Fairground and you can imagine the tall wooden gate which once stood there. Then as you look ahead, you'll notice how the road take a strange bend to the right. This bend roughly follows the old race course. If you move along and take this bend, you are now looking down Virginia street, which was built along the old strait away. At the end of Virginia, where it ends at Fair, is the house I grew up in. The house we pulled plates and spoons, horseshoes and old medicine bottles from the ground. The history was around me, under my feet and even wondering about these treasures, I never knew.