Grange Fair

The Grange Fair is an annual fair and camping event held in Centre Hall in Centre County, Pennsylvania each year since 1874. The fair is typically held in the last full week of August.[1]

Centre County Grange Fair
Fairgoers at the Grange Fair
GenreCounty fair
DatesAugust 16- 24, 2019
Location(s)Centre Hall, Pennsylvania
Years active1874- Present
WebsiteOfficial website

It consists of thousands of people camping at the fairgrounds in large, green, rented tents with asphalt floors. Thousands more stay in their own recreational vehicles, parked on the grounds. In addition to those staying on the fair grounds, daily visitors come for rides, food, bingo, animal shows, livestock contests and concerts.

Families stay in the same tent each year and tent locations are often passed down through generations. After the space for the tents reached maximum capacity a wait list was started. The wait list was cancelled after 3 decades when it exceeded 500 families, some of which waited 27 years. You can no longer apply for a tent.[2]

On the last day of 140th Grange Fair, it was announced that the 2015 Grange Fair will be moving a week earlier and adding 1 day, with the fair going from 7 days to 9 days.[3] Historically those renting tents would move in on Tuesday with those renting spaces with campers move in starting as early as the Sunday before the fair opened to those not camping on the grounds on that Thursday for season ticket holders.

The 2005 Emmy awarding winning documentary film The Grange Fair: An American Tradition directed by Joe Myers chronicles the 131st Grange Fair.[4]

References
  1. "Centre County History". Centre County Historical Society. Retrieved 3 June 2013.
  2. "Grange Fair | tents". The Centre Daily Times. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
  3. "IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT GRANGE FAIR 2015!..." Centre County Grange Encampment and Fair (Official Facebook Page). Retrieved 30 August 2014.
  4. PBS. "The Grange Fair: An American Tradition". NPR. Retrieved August 9, 2019.

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