Believe it or not, the Sheboygan County Fair was held at the Plymouth Fair Grounds when I was growing up. It was always over Labor Day. It signaled the end of summer and beginning of fall and school(yuk).
I remember most the early 1950’s. I would have been between 10-16 years of age. The fair always started on Friday and ran through Monday but unofficially the “rides” were open on Thursday. My mom would always encourage me to get my butt up to the fairgrounds and earn some money helping to set up rides and concessions. I did that. It gave me spending money for the fair.
From the City Club I would walk to the east end of Mill Street, over the bridge on the dam over the Mullet River and then along the river on a path in the backyards of homeowners on Fairview Drive. Yes, the path cut across property now owned by Bob and Mary. It took minutes.
The “carny guys” were always heavily muscled, lots of tatoos and chain-smokers. Amazingly, they treated kids who helped out very well and they were the source of free rides during the fair. The carny guys always operated the rides and were constantly flirting with the pretty young girls. Late at night after the rides were ready to close, you could always find some young gal who had fallen for the false sales pitch of the carny smooching at the beer tent.
I remember the barns with livestock, the endless line of buildings with displays of everything from handmade quilts to woodcarvings. I know the Steger’s had a ritual of going to the fair to get a 15% discount on an annual subscription to the Plymouth Review. The also got a free gift! Wow. And then there was cotton candy, brats, corn-on-cob, and endless selections of beverages.
The one game that captured my imagination was at the Penny Arcade. You would put 5 cents into a machine and then turn a crank that released a long file of sequencial pictures of a burlesque dancer. She was topless but you had to flip well into the pack of pictures to get to the good part. Then it went past fast. So you put in another nickel and tried again intent on stopping at the part a young guy would be interested in. Somehow the machine would never stop where you wanted and, yup, another nickel. It was a rip-off but lots of nickels went into that machine. Saturday night was Stock Car races.
My mom and dad would come “up” to the fair one day. We kids loved that because the money flowed. Lots of rides. Essentially they would try to get rid of us by giving us cash. It worked.
I remember walking home from the fair one afternoon. Someone told me the Milwaukee Braves were winning their game in Milwaukee and that Joe Adcock had hit 4 homeruns. The game wasn’t over and when I got home I learned he had hit a fifth ball off the top of the center field wall. He got a total of 18 bases off his hits which set a record that stood for years.
Rides were 25 cents, occassionaly 35 cents. Now they are $2-3 per ride. I guess inflation hit the fair also.
It was a fun time. Good memories.
Love,
Dad