“The office was built in the mid to late ‘50s,” said Clark County Fairgrounds Executive Director Dean Blair.
He said the fair moved onto the grounds in 1948, with most buildings built in the 1950s.
Clark County commissioners used $945,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for construction of the new office building.
The new 2,890-square-foot office, which was completed in June 2023, is just 300 yards from the old office space and to the left of the driveway, further into the park.
The Clark County Agricultural Society, which runs the fair, moved into the new space. The building provides a more modern and comfortable environment for the year-round staff to work, a conference room and the ability for people to access the office staff from the outside from a walk-up window.
“We are just absolutely thrilled. It’s so comfortable, it’s so accommodating, it’s roomy, so sustainable for all meetings,” Blair said. “We’ve had commission meetings, a radio club that uses our room for occasional meetings, we hosted a chamber event, all kinds of uses.”
Although the old building was demolished, two buckeye trees that are next to where the space used to be were left untouched, Blair said.
In 1959, Barb Gray, who is now in her 80s, planted the trees with the then “Rockin’ 8 4-H Saddle Club,” of which her father-in-law was the advisor. She said she still goes to the trees and picks buckeyes around Christmas time, and she still has the photos of when they planted them.
“Oh, it’s wonderful (the trees are still there). They’re so big and pretty,” she said. “I hope they don’t cut them down ... That’s a part of history.”
The old building was torn down to create space for a bigger development that’s part of makeover planned for the fairgrounds for years. Moving the office a couple hundred yards into the fairgrounds into a space that wasn’t being used for parking or activities makes it a good use of space and allows room for other projects, such as plans for a hotel, restaurant and/or retail space.
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