Leonard Rhone was instrumental in the Grange Movement in Centre County and made the motion to have the local Granges come together for a “Grange Picnic” in 1874.
He would have been astonished to see what evolved from that first picnic. Rhone was Master of Pomona Grange and Progress Grange and went on to become the State Master for 18 years.
When doing some research about the Grange Fair, it was suggested I speak with Norman Lathbury. His book, “Centre County Grange Encampment and Fair, A History of Master Rhone’s Pic-nic,” published in 1999, was very helpful. Lathbury retired in 2012 as Coordinator of Centre County Land Preservation Board. His family is still camping at the Grange Fair.
The first Grange Picnic, held in Leech’s Woods, near Centre Hall, was a huge success according to the Centre Reporter from Sept. 24, 1874, and counted 3,000 attendees. Other sites over the years included Centre County Fairgrounds, Bellefonte, Mount Nittany, Centre Hall Mountain, Old Fort Woods, Centre Hall and finally in 1890 to the Grange Park.
The “Grange” movement itself was fairly new at the time of the first picnic — with the formal organization of the “Patrons of Husbandry,” and the word “Grange” as the name for local units, having taken place in 1867. The purpose of the Grange was to give farmers a chance to come together to decide community matters, to solve their mutual problems and to seek better management of their farms.
Farmers formed cooperatives to buy in bulk and keep prices lower for seeds and other needs. The Grange provided a source of friendship and cooperation, and was instrumental in helping to rebuild farms and spirits after the devastation of the Civil War, especially in the south, but also in the north and west.
Fair patrons and campers were mostly farmers from the Centre County area in the following years. As more activities and attendance grew, it became necessary to add permanent buildings. The auditorium, that the fair committee ordered built, is now known as the Commercial Building. Stables were added and by 1910 there were 200 tents with wooden floors on the fairgrounds. The tents contained a table, bench and a bunk. The fair provided straw if you brought your own tick.
Today, the parade of tents and recreational vehicles stretches for miles on the move-in days and is facilitated by assigning days and times to set up camp. If you have never seen the site of Centre County’s Grange Fair, you would have a difficult time imagining 1,000 tents and 1,500 RVs on one fairgrounds. I was stunned at my first sight of the long rows of tents set out in streets like a village and completely furnished with sofas, tables, refrigerators and other creature comforts.
I find it fascinating that people go to such lengths to hold what amount to huge family reunions. Many families today have given up on reunions as family members have died and their children are scattered over the United States and beyond. Yet, here in Centre County, people have returned to the Grange Fair their entire lives and have inherited the sites from generations before them. Entire families plan their vacations around the fair.
Lathbury said, “We were fortunate to get our spot at Grange Fair. After a death, the site goes to family and only after they decline, to the next person on the list.”
There is a long waiting list of people desiring a site. He said he would move in on Aug. 18, the earliest day when campers can set up kitchens and porches.
The memories of “Fairs gone by” are varied and yet similar in many cases. One family said that it was the staying up late and the “curfew” time that they remember. Card games, pranks, “just sittin’ around” and eating topped the list of answers I received to my “What do you remember?” questions.
Some tenters look at the Grange Fair as time away.
“It’s our vacation and we look forward to it,” said Linda Heverly, pastoral administrative assistant/office manager at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in State College.
“I remember my grandparents loading up the car, tying everything down and heading for the fair. After they got the tent, I was there with them every summer. My mother was more of a city girl and not as crazy for the Grange Fair, but I loved it.” Heverly said.
According to Heverly, her grandparents occupied two sites and got the present one in the late 1960s and it is now hers. Now her children and grandchildren join her and her husband at the fair. Two years ago her grandson was the “Baby King.” She said she will always remember Dot Delaney waking everyone in the morning saying, “get your coffee pots started” over the PA system.
Heverly has entered nearly every category of home and garden over the years at Grange Fair. She has displayed her crocheting, clothing pieces, needlework, vegetables, flowers, and baked goods at various times.
“I started as a teenager,” she said. “It’s all part of the experience that is Grange Fair.”
