“Fair Had a Military Aspect” from the August 25, 1960 Door County Advocate
Fair Had a Military Aspect
The short-lived Door-Kewaunee fair was brought to mind recently when a child's ticket for the 1918 Door-Kewaunee fair was found. The ticket is a souvenir worth keeping because 1918 was the last year of the Door-Kewaunee fair, an event that had the short life of three years. The fair for the two counties was held in Sturgeon Bay in 1916, and 1918, but died when Kewaunee county residents concentrated on having a fair of their own.
The old ticket was found between the walls of the Door county Cooperative mill at Forestville. Manager Paul Eggert reports that the ticket was found as remodeling was being done.
In fact, in 1918 the Door-Kewaunee fair followed a week after a separate Kewaunee county fair. However, Kewaunee county residents still cooperated with the fair in Sturgeon Bay. The Advocate reported, "The people of Kewaunee county, regardless of the fact that they had a fair of their own, cooperated with the officials of the local association, there being exhibits from all parts of our neighboring county."
And the Kewauneeans did all right for themselves, taking home their share of prizes. They won most of the prizes in the rural school exhibits.
The combined fair originated in 1916 when Kewaunee county residents were invited to participate in the Door county fair, flourished in 1917 and 1918 and then died as the Kewaunee county fair monopolized the interest of our neighbors to the south.
Taking place as it did during the bleak days of World War I when casualty reports were coming in every day, the Door-Kewaunee fair of 1918 had a military aspect. A sham battle put on by the Home Guards was one of the features of the fair.
The battle was advertised thusly: “Drill by Home Guards and sham battle with 10,000 shots fired at 3:30 p.m. sharp. Come and see how our boys are going over the top. Trench warfare and regular-army maneuvers."
Newspaper accounts described the battle as follows: "The Guards, after giving a drill, marched to the north end of the tract enclosed by the race track and after maneuvering for a few minutes formed a battle line and made an advance to the south end. A farm tractor gotten up to represent a tank forged several rods ahead of the line, and the boys fired volleys, lay down and fired and advanced again until they had gotten way to the other end. The line of khaki-clad men, the crackling of Springfield 45:70 rifles and the smoke from the black powder they used, altogether gave a very realistic appearance. Behind the battle line Boy Scouts acted as Red Cross attendants and rushed out with stretchers from under cover when a soldier fell, carrying him back for first aid service."
The sham battle was a huge success, in spite of the fact that people had come expecting to see a real tank instead of a farm tractor. Preliminary ballyhoo had said, “As a special feature a tank of the type now in action on the Western front will go over the top with the boys.”
Further military flavor was given by a huge parade around the race track by relatives of soldiers and sailors, shipyard workers, the Home Guard and Boy Scouts. The parade, headed by the families of dead and wounded soldiers, stretched almost all the way around the half-mile track.
The township booths each contained a service flag in honor of the boys in service. The winning booth was entered by Jacksonport. The booth, in addition to containing examples of the township's farm products, featured the Statue of Liberty, behind which was hung a service flag with 42 blue stars and one gold star. The gold star honored Lester Erskine, the only Jacksonport boy who had thus far fallen in battle.
The fair was an artistic success, but the eternal enemy of fairs—rain—killed it financially.
Many of the events were carded for Wednesday but had to be postponed because of rain. Thursday it rained again and on Friday it threatened to rain most of the day. The fair lost approximately $2,000, a sum of considerable magnitude in those days.
Thus the last Door-Kewaunee fair ended—rained out not for a year but perhaps forever.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
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