Long time, no see! It's been forever since my last post and I thought I would bring a bright light to your Friday the 13th by putting up a new post. So, this post is not exactly an article. The reason why is because of lack of information. It's fun to look at pictures of old places and it's fun (at least for me) to read info about old places and what all transpired to bring them to the destination they're at. What you may not know is how much really goes into all of it This post is to show that we may want to know about certain places but we may not get that wish. Or for me, it was a place still standing and you pass quite a bit but nobody, besides people who were there, know anything about it. This is my post I put up on Facebook regarding a project I have been working on for (I'm not kidding when I say this) years. This was my dream project, to put together an article about a place in my own backyard. But I had no luck in finding anything, and to make matters worse, the place that started the whole thing was all crumbling down, literally. This was a day of frustration over living with this beautiful piece of wooded art just disappearing before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do about it but just watch it all happen while knowing little to nothing about somebody else's pride and joy that brought others happiness and memories. So here it is! My post/close to an article of the Adams County Fairgrounds. *Update: There are 3 buildings left. I went by the property the same day I wrote the post. 2 long buildings and the barn. Hopefully the owners will spare their lives.
I've always seen the top of Facebook that says, "What's on your mind?" I've always ignored it until today. Recently what has been on my mind has been a journey that started back in 2013 that has come to an end recently.
People who've known me as far back as high school when I was in a journalism class at co-op and did local history articles know that I am a history freak. I absolutely love local history! Anything that I can go to some kind of coordinates and know that something extravagant such as a defunct amusement park or drive past an old movie theater I will be absolutely obsessed trying to figure out it's history and what it used to be in it's previous life.
In 2013 I went on a journey after a newspaper article popped up that a tractor fire went on across from a location called, "The Adams County Fairgrounds". I started asking so many questions to my mom about what is this place that they are talking about because I knew nothing about a fairgrounds nearby in East Berlin. My mom started telling me some things such as where it's at and what all she knows. My grandpa and my dad can actually tell me more because they were there. My grandpa told me about when he was a kid he got to see a guy wrestle a gorilla. My dad got to tell me about when he was a kid he got to go and watch the tractor pulls that they would do down the gravel driveway. Of course after hearing these stories I had to know the history, how it got started, how many years did it run, what stuff did they have to entertain the crowd, EVERYTHING!
I was still running a blog for my articles so this was my project as my next article. I didn't know how big this project was going to be so I lined up another article to do, Boyds Bear Country in Gettysburg (never did finish that one). The project was so big the search went on for years! Surely it's not that hard to find history on a defunct fairgrounds, including one that's still standing! Well, strangest thing, no matter how far I searched it's like the fairgrounds never existed. It's just these random buildings that were just...there. All I could find were old newspapers on Google that listed all the fairs going on in the area. That's something right!? Sort of. I kept looking and looking and nothing. Years went on and I had taken a break from driving myself crazy about the fairgrounds with no history. My mom showed me a listing on eBay for a program...but not just any program...THE program from the Adams County Fair!!! I bought it and it came. I was in love with this program (scary, huh.). It had opened a new world to me! Picture the York Fair minus the rides and concerts and that was the Adams County Fair! They had competitions for best produce, best veggies, best animals such as cows, pigs, and sheep. They had the rewards for winning, which makes all of us look filthy rich. It was great and history was in the palms of my hands! But it still didn't answer all my questions. My mom asked on a Hanover history group and they had sort of the same answers as my mom, dad, and grandpa. Finally, I started giving up.
I hope I have not bore anybody to tears yet...
Early this year I heard somebody had bought the fairgrounds. My hopes and dreams of maybe somebody bringing this dark, gloomy, lifeless piece of property that has been waiting to be awakened again will do just that. They started clearing out the brush and stuff that wrapped itself around the buildings and clenched on for so many years. Once it was all gone it was like a breath of fresh air and an opening of a door for the public eye to see such beautiful structures that have been sitting, waiting to see the light of day again. There was a barn that I can just picture having some of the animal shows in. There was a stage that you can only just imagine how many kids jumped up there and danced or older folks got their guitars to play a song or two. There was a smaller building that might've been filled with fruits and veggies to be judged for all the people to see who has the best in all of Adams County. I could go on and on. It was gorgeous to me because I thought I would never see this. I couldn't wait to see what happens next. Unfortunately, maybe I should've waited.
My family and I were out for a drive, and this was probably a couple weeks to a month or two after they cleared everything out. The fairgrounds didn't look right. IT LOOKED EMPTY BECAUSE IT WAS! I will never know why but...they tore the buildings down. I don't know if they were in rough shape or what but everything was torn down except for the big barn. Some of the buildings were being loaded up onto a trailer. The stage was in a big pile of wood. And a barn was the only thing left, standing it's ground, of the Adams County Fair. I was devastated. My hopes and dreams, other people's childhood memories, a piece of Adams County history and a special part of ole' town East Berlin is lost and sitting in a pile of rubble.
Here's to you, Adams County Fairgrounds.
