The Shiawassee County Fair traces back to 1850 — and a profit of $81

The first version of the Shiawassee County Fair turned a profit of $81.25. That was 1854, four years after a group in Corunna formed an agricultural society and started gathering farmers to show off their best livestock and produce. By that fourth year they’d drawn 322 entries — a real crowd for a county still mostly stumps and new farms — and the books closed in the black. Premiums for winners ran from a generous ten dollars down to fifty cents.

The fair wandered for a while. A second society in 1860 moved it to Owosso, where it bounced between sites, including a stretch as a horse-racing matinee course. It found a lasting home back in Corunna in the 1920s, when a county picnic at Hugh McCurdy Park grew into a full fair as farm exhibits got added in the 1930s. That spot — the leafy riverside park in town — hosted the fair for 53 years. Picture 12,000 to 15,000 people packed into a city park each August, harness races on the grandstand track, 4-H kids walking their steers down to the river.

By the late 1970s the fair had simply outgrown the place. The park’s buildings were boxed in; there was nowhere left to expand. So the fair board bought a 127-acre farm out on Hibbard Road, partly with a community “Buy an Acre” drive, put up a show arena big enough to swallow McCurdy Park’s old barns whole, and moved. The first fair on the new grounds was held in 1988, and that’s where it still runs every August.

What’s striking is how long the thread is. The crowd that lines up for a corn dog and a tractor pull on Hibbard Road today is standing in a line that started in 1850, with a society of pioneer farmers and an $81 surplus they probably plowed right back into next year’s premiums.