The rides, days spent in the animal barns, playing the games, the sounds of the Midway, the smells of the meals on a stick…it is all part of the Fair experience that so many people consider a yearly ritual. Except this year.
Like so many events, 2020 means the cancellation of our local and state fairs. But, if you have a story that takes you from the Midway to Memory Lane, a local group wants to hear it!
Below is a call for submissions to the historical society:
Seeking your fair stories
Like everyone in the county, the Chippewa County Historical Society (CCHS) is sad to see the Northern Wisconsin State Fair cancelled this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But while we’re all thinking of it, here’s an action you can take!
CCHS is seeking area residents willing to share any interesting or unusual
memories of the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in past years.
Did you meet your gal or guy at the Fair? Did your goat or your pie win Grand Prize, or did your nephew take a tumble during the pedal tractor pull? Did you get a chance to meet one of the Main Stage acts, or maybe Alice in Dairyland?
Your remembrances can be as short as a paragraph or two. If you have a
photo, CCHS would love it if you’d include a photo of that moment or that day— or of the person submitting the information.
CCHS will add all these stories to its archives, and we’ll choose several to
feature in a new pictorial history book about the Northern Wisconsin State Fair taking place during the last 123 years. Publication of the new work is scheduled for late 2020 and it will be available prior to Christmas.
The book will be the third of its type published by the CCHS and all sale proceeds will be contributed to the new Area History Center Capital Campaign.
The sales of the other two books has raised more than $38,000 for the building project. The first was published in 2017 in conjunction with the 100 th anniversary of the building of Lake Wissota and is titled: Lake Wissota – The Dam Story. The second book is Irvine Park – The Bear Facts that was published in 2019.
These books are available at Country Treasures and Foreign 5 in
downtown Chippewa Falls.
Please send all materials to: Area History Center, 123 Allen St. Chippewa Falls, WI. 54729. If you’re sending a photo and would like it returned, make a note of it, and we’ll scan it and return it to you. If instead you’d like the photo to become part of the permanent collection, let us know that, too.
