05/07/2026
Hey, our next theme for our AGV members is "Remembering the Porter County Fair"
This is a suggested theme, members may enter any artwork they choose. Drop off for the next show is June 25th. 4-7pm. At 257 Indiana Ave.
Please remember that you can only submit work that hasn't been previously shown at AGV.
Here's a bit of history, courtesy of the Porter County Museum.
PORTER COUNTY FAIR
MARCH 26, 2021
March 26, 1991: Theyâve come for fun and prizes since 1851
Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 26, 1991.
Theyâve come for fun and prizes since 1851
by William Thompson
The Vidette-Messenger
Fair Fun?Through the years, 140 of them to be exact, the Porter County Fair has afforded county residents, and others from all over the area, the opportunity to view some of the most unusual and popular acts around. For example, Johnny Riversâ WorldâŚ
Fair Fun?
Through the years, 140 of them to be exact, the Porter County Fair has afforded county residents, and others from all over the area, the opportunity to view some of the most unusual and popular acts around. For example, Johnny Riversâ Worldâs Only High Diving Mules once amazed fairgoers, as shown above in this photo, provided by former Fair Board vice-president John Poncher of Valparaiso. But he wasnât sure just when they appeared.
The Porter County Fair will celebrate its 150th anniversary in the year 2001.
Carl Hefner, the summer festivalâs longest-serving president, has had a long love affair with fairs, and he traces the evolution of the local event not in cold facts, but in memories.
Former Vidette-Messenger reporter Nancy Shurr recalls the early history of the fair:
The idea for the fair was conceived on June 14, 1851, at a meeting to organize an Agriculture Society and attended by prominent local citizens. The Porter County Fair became a one-day event on the courthouse lawn in Valparaiso.
It was attended by about 400 people and presented $80 in prizes for horses, cattle, sheep, swine, fruits and vegetables, dairy products and farm equipment.
Following this success, a second fair was held October 14-15, 1852, with prize money increased to $100 and more categories added. By 1853 there was $300 in prize money and competition in butter, cheese, bed quilting and rug carpeting was added.
The fair was held on the courthouse square until 1859, when it moved to the old woolen mill grounds, west of the former Anderson Co. building. This site was used until 1862, when the fair was suspended due to the Civil War.
The fair did not reappear in Porter County until 1871, when the Agricultural Society was reorganized under the leadership of president A.V. Bartholomew. The fair was held in October of that year.
In July 1872, a 20-acre plot north of the Grand Trunk Railroad and just east of state Route 49 was bought by the society from Nathan A. Kennedy for $2,500. A fence was built around the grounds; buildings and stalls were erected; and the first fair was held on this site in 1872.
The parcel was later increased by acquiring nine acres from William Riggs in 1890 and the Old Fairgrounds was created, Shurr said. And it served its purpose will late into the 20th Century.
Because of the Depression, the 1931 fair went broke, and was the last held as a major event for a number of years, Hefner said.
The handsome gentleman at above is Golden Moose Cholak, a big name in professional wrestling in the 1950s and â60s. He also performed at the fair, sometime in the early 1960s, when he was the World Champion, according to the belt buckle.
The handsome gentleman at above is Golden Moose Cholak, a big name in professional wrestling in the 1950s and â60s. He also performed at the fair, sometime in the early 1960s, when he was the World Champion, according to the belt buckle.
In 1932, it became a two-day event with no entertainment; after that, it was run strictly as a 4-H show until 1943, when the Fair Board was resurrected and reorganized, thanks mostly to a man named John Avala Jones (who was a former treasurer of the Ringling Brothers Circus).
Jones brought the fair back to a five-day schedule.
By 1954, the fair had grown to a six-day affair ăź with carnivals and entertainment booked once again. It was during this renaissance that Hefner took an interest in the fair.
He first became involved in 1948, assisting with the hog and swine departments. He happily worked this department until 1956, when he was elected to serve as Fair Board president, replacing Walter Hanrahan, who had served for 14 years. Hefner held the boardâs top spot until 1989.
âThe Porter County Fair is not a one-man show ăź itâs an effort put together by an awful lot of people and I want to stress that,â Hefner said.
âI donât know why I originally joined. I just love fairs; I never thought then that the fair would get to be the size it is now. I guess youâd say you like to work with people when you work with fairs.â
By the mid-60s, the Fair Board saw the need for more acreage, but city zoning regulations stifled expansion
âObstructions were put in front of it (one old fairgrounds), so that the county commissioners couldnât develop it much more,â Hefner recalls.
After years of haggling and in-fighting between the governmental bodies in the â70s, the Fair Board was finally able to move into the new Porter County Fairgrounds and Exposition Center in Washington Township in 1985.
The move allowed the fair an expansion from 29 to 80 acres, and it is held there to this day.
