In 2003, filmmaker Joe Myers took his camera crew to Centre Hall, Pennsylvania and documented the eight months leading up to the 130th Annual Centre County Grange Encampment and Fair.
Although there are many large and thriving agricultural fairs held in the United States each year, the Centre County Grange Fair is unique in being "an encampment fair." Each year, nearly 1,000 families create a temporary tent city on the grounds of "Grange Park" for the eight days that the fair runs. That number is doubled by the families who are accommodated in over 1,300 RVs on site.
It sounds like great fun—a Heartland version of Burning Man, Rainbow Gathering or the best of the Pagan gatherings I used to attend. Like these events, Centre County Grange Fair means far more to its regular members than a mere vacation. It is a vast family reunion that has been carried on for generations. The paved tent sites, equipped with square canvas army tents, are owned by families who inherit them. Tent Secretary Darlene Confer has a waiting list of five hundred names for any site that becomes available. At the beginning of the film, several Centre County residents describe a local divorce in which the most bitterly contested piece of community property was the couple's Grange Fair tent site.
In 1874, when the Grange Fair began, farms were isolated and transportation was difficult, costly, and slow. Encampment fairs provided a rich opportunity for farm families to socialize, share news, exchange shop talk, transact business, and even do some courting and matchmaking. All that still happens at fairs, but fairgrounds are now a reasonable daily commute for most attendees, farming and otherwise. The Grange Park tent city is a tradition of love, not necessity.
Like modern farming, the Centre County Grange Fair combines tradition with twenty-first century amenities. Campers outfit the basic tents provided by the park with furniture, refrigerators, televisions, video game sets, DVD players, and light fixtures. Some families build "additions" to their tents. A tent decorating contest inspires attendees like Betsy Forsythe to craft elaborate facades resembling a candy house or a log cabin. Camp kids deliver a daily newspaper. A quick check of the 2007 Centre County Grange Fair's official website reveals that the Fair now offers live webcams and free WiFi. But the Fair Midway, produce displays, canned goods, fine crafts, livestock barns, tractor pulls and entertainments are comfortingly familiar. To keep the Fair "family friendly," alcohol and inappropriate language are prohibited from the Fair grounds.
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