GOOD OLD DAYS:O.C. Fair through the years

What’s in a name? Or location? Or theme?

For a fair, those things constitute its very identity.

Many Orange County Fair visitors may not realize that these basic characteristics ? the fair’s name, location and theme ? were introduced only in relatively recent years.

Without such defining qualities, fair organizers looked for other ways to establish its identity, said Orange County Fair CEO Becky Bailey-Findley.

“Something I’ve noticed [about the fair] is the element of competition,” Bailey-Findley said. “Who had the fastest horse, the biggest pumpkin, the best cake? That’s something that defined the fair early on. And you know, the fair still has that. People still compete that same way today.”

In its early years, with only horse shows and agriculture competitions, the fair had little tying it to any one location.

By the 1920s, the fair had been on the move for most of its existence. It moved to Anaheim in 1925 but didn’t stay long. During the early 1930s, the fair relocated to Pomona, and then moved back to its founding city, Santa Ana.

The fair was no more decisive with its name. Having previously been known as the Harvest Home Festival and the California Valencia Orange Show, the fair acquired the name Orange County Fair and Horse Show sometime during the 1930s.

Bailey-Findley thinks that although the fair lacked a sense of permanence, its frequent changes attracted visitors from different areas each year. Inadvertently, she said, this ensured that the fair would bring in plenty of money.

The 1936 fair featured parades and floats that celebrated California’s romantic history. A whopping 1,000 people and 500 horses participated. Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra entertained fair visitors in 1938, and the decade ended with the first participation of 4-H clubs.

The 1940s brought about hard times for the fair. From 1942 to 1947, federal government wartime restrictions prohibited its activities altogether.

The fair also moved twice more: back to Anaheim and then, in 1949, to a Santa Ana Army Air Base, which became the fair’s permanent home, morphing into the fairgrounds of today.

During the 1950s, army barracks were converted into huge exhibition buildings, and Memorial Gardens was formally dedicated on Veterans Day in 1958. Fairs during the decade featured ostrich races, pogo stick races and helicopter rides. Entertainers included Lawrence Welk, Spade Cooley and Icelandia, a musical comedy on ice.

One of the most popular 1959 attractions was a two-bedroom house for $5,000. That year, attendance was a record 101,000.

Bailey-Findley recalls the fairs of the following decade: “In the ‘60s, there was a Hawaiian theme, with Hilo Hattie. When I got involved, in the ‘60s, there was more of a need for a theme as a marketing tactic, because by that time there was Disneyland and other competition.”

The unofficial theme was only the beginning. The fairs of the ‘60s featured a rodeo in a specially built arena and entertainment from Glen Campbell and Lou Rawls. In 1963, Pac Bell presented a push-button phone, and in 1969 the fair was proud to show a scale model of Apollo 11.

A look at the history of the Orange County Fair concludes next week with the fair’s more recent years, from the introduction of racing pigs and La Grande Wheel to truly record-breaking attendance in 2005.

dpt.19-goodolddays-C.1PhotoInfoOL1T2LPO20060719j2miwqncCredit: Courtesy of O.C. Fair Caption: (LA)The Orange County Fair Pirate Queen, May 18, 1951.