Genesee County Fair

From Genesee County Fair Website:

The Genesee County Fair is a family tradition that spans 170 years in Genesee County. Woven into the fabric of our American heritage, the Fair provides an environment of common ground where people can socialize, be entertained, and participate in events that ultimately make our community stronger by offering one of the few remaining links between people and land.

During the late fall of 1849 in Flint, Michigan, there were informal discussions wherever people gathered about holding a county fair. Many had taken a combination stage and train trip to Detroit on September 26th to enjoy the first Michigan State Fair. Because of the dearth of communications, they had no way of knowing that they had attended Americas first state fair. They liked what they saw and returned home determined to do likewise for their own Genesee County the next year.

Since the first fair in 1850, however, there are several basics that have not changed:
1) Pooling our ability and resources so as to be able to arrive at predetermined goals collectively;
2) Being able to use the environment of the fair as a common denominator or equalizer;
3) To be able to provide an annual event at which any individual, group or business may exhibit the results of his or her talents as against that of others in competition open to the world;
4) to provide a common ground where people can socialize and be entertained in a family atmosphere which at the same time is educational. These things are needed now in our sesquicentennial year as much or more than they have ever been before in the history of this Michigan community, to unite the melting pot make-up of our population.

This year thousands of people from across Mid-Michigan will smile their way through The Genesee County Fair, August 24-30, 2020.