A group of Ephrata businessmen gazed out a second-story window, down onto Main Street, as they gathered at the Cloister Club in 1919.
Ephrata Fair fans crowd Main Street in this 1960 photo provided by the Historical Society of the Cocal
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They had organized a tribute to honor the brave soldiers returning home from World War I. They wondered how they might add to the event the next year.
I. Leonard Sprecher was one of the men involved in that chat. His son, John, now 95, believes his dad's store windows at Sprecher's Hardware may have spurred what happened next.
"My dad would take the funny-shaped turnip and the great big watermelon in the fall and put it in the store windows, with a card stating who raised it," Sprecher recalls. "Those four fellows looked across the street and started to talk about it."
One said, "Well, you know, there would be money from the state and ribbons if we held a little fair."
Ninety years later, that "little fair" has turned into a five-day extravaganza with food, rides, agricultural displays, entertainment and a parade that turns 75 years old this year.
The Ephrata Fair runs from Tuesday to Saturday. The parade steps off from Ephrata High School at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
For 90 years, area residents have looked forward to the fair.
"One of the reasons it was a success was everybody was there," Sprecher says. "You went there to see the people you hadn't seen in a while. In my younger days, the boys were always looking at the girls, too, as far as that goes."
In the '20s, Sprecher remembers working in the Boy Scout tent, selling hot dogs and coffee, and taking his turn on the street.
"The Boy Scouts acted as traffic cops! Of course, there was not too much traffic then," he says, laughing.
IF YOU GO...
What: 90th Ephrata Fair.When: Tuesday through Saturday.Where: Along Main and State streets in downtown Ephrata and Tent City in Tom Grater Park.
Sprecher also remembers the game stands, which he calls "fakers," and the "wheels" or games of chance run by local service groups.
"For a time, there was a bit of a problem with the churches — they didn't want the gambling — but they worked it out," he says.
The street fair grew steadily as the decades went on. In 1931, the fair featured a beagle contest, awarded top prizes of 75 cents in the vegetable contest and advertised "No weary walking over acres of dust. Everything concentrated and FREE," according to a premium booklet housed at the Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley.
The next year, the fair included "a number of unique contests," according to a 1932 article in the Ephrata Review.
Competitions were held between church choirs and between jug bands. New that year was a horseshoe contest.
The parade back then was called the Mummers Day Parade, a term that applied not to the sequined strutters from Philadelphia but to local folks who donned costumes and marched down the street.
"The line of march this year is expected to have even more elaborate and beautiful as well as grotesque entries than in 1931," the paper reported.
Lucille Meissner, 67, now a fair board member, loved the fair while growing up in Ephrata. Her uncle, the late Lloyd Gerhart, was longtime fair president.
On Kiddies Day, always Thursday during the fair, school children were dismissed early with a strip of free ride tickets.
"I remember a carousel right on the square," Meissner says. "And there were twin Ferris wheels on the north side of Main Street."
For years, the fair featured a car raffle sponsored by the American Legion and other local clubs. The savvy organizers did not draw the winning tickets until late Saturday to keep a crowd at the fair.
Another draw was a now-defunct beauty pageant. Its first winner, in 1950, was Evelyn Ay, who went from being the fair and county tobacco queen to Miss America in 1954.
Betsy and Randy Leinbach, both 66, grew up in Ephrata. They now organize the fair's parade.
He recalls a year when the Green Dragon farmer's market statue, now on a sign along Route 272, was pulled through streets of Ephrata during the parade.
The event has changed with the times. Food stands now sell smoothies and wraps, as well as funnel cakes. Red McCarthy and his Dance Band played in 1952; Beatlemania appeared in recent years.
The parade used to be big on baton twirlers and drum and bugle corps. This year, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile is scheduled to roll through town.
But the fair still beckons.
People are not supposed to put chairs on the sidewalks, to reserve a spot for parade-watching, until three days before the event.
They started sneaking them out last week.
Staff writer Cindy Stauffer can be reached at cstauffer@LNPnews.com or 481-6024.
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