Tucked back in the Heritage Village of the State Fair is an exhibit exploring the fair's history, with photographs and even a scale model of the fairgrounds at the turn of the century. Much of this information is available because of the hard work of researchers and historians.
In 1996, former N&O writer Scott Huler introduced us to Paul Blankinship, who became fascinated by the State Fair because it used to be in his front yard.
He lives in Raleigh, just across Hillsborough Street from N.C. State University, in the Fairmont subdivision: where the fairgrounds used to be before the Fair moved, in 1928, to its present location.
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"How I got started with this whole project is I live in Fairmont, " says Blankinship, riffling through dozens of framed photographs in his cramped, specially dehumidified garage, where he keeps his collection of photographs, posters and other Fair shards and fragments. "I had always heard that the Rose Garden next to the Raleigh Little Theater was the site of the race track [at the old fairgrounds]. And I browsed through some old photos and started saying, 'This doesn't look right.' "
Because of its proximity to the Rose Garden, the house Blankinship has lived in since 1977 seemed like a good place to start. He did a little research on his deed and found that the land had indeed originally been part of the fairgrounds - a blue 1926 map he unrolls of the Fairmont subdivision plainly shows the shape of the racetrack in the oval of Gardner Street.
But this still didn't jive with the old pictures Blankinship had seen. So he kept digging.
In his garage, he then produces another rolled architectural topographical map. "I found this map in the Register of Deeds office in an unindexed box, " he says. "It was drawn by students in a class at N.C. State." The map quite plainly shows the race track that Blankinship had seen in photographs. It's labeled "race track prior to 1922." Next to it, however, is another race track, which landmarks on the map showed was obviously where the Rose Garden is now. It's labeled "New Track."
Mystery solved. "It took me about 10 years to figure it out, " Blankinship says.
But that was just the beginning. Once Paul Blankenship - who makes his living working on submarine computer telemetry - gets interested in something, he keeps digging. So he kept going in the Register of Deeds office. "They bought all this land in 1873, " he says of the N.C. State Agricultural Society, which used to own and run the Fair. He grins and adds sheepishly, "from Sally Brown." It's almost as though he can't decide whether to be embarrassed that he can't tell you what Sally Brown did for a living - or embarrassed that he knows her name in the first place.
But standing in his cramped garage, standing in the three or four square feet not taken up by photographs, books and maps - and garden-variety garage detritus like a tuba and a World War I helmet with a spike on top - he can run down a history of the State Fair.
He talks about the burning of the original buildings by Sherman's army because they were used as Confederate hospitals. He talks about the move from the first fairgrounds to the second. The Society threatened to leave town unless Raleigh ponied up $10,000, which it said it needed to expand. Raleigh reluctantly provided the cash, and the Fair stayed.
The information never stops flowing. The second fairgrounds had a track - foot races and horse races were among the Fair's most popular events. At the second fairgrounds, the midway began developing as well. Several large buildings were erected, including one called Flower Hall, with an octagonal atrium and two large exhibition wings.
In 1901 some girls from St. Mary's College, with the help of a guard, sneaked onto a ride in the off-season and suffered a crash of a roller coaster called the Switchback; fortunately, they were OK. He says that every year, the advertisements for the Fair promised that "this year's Fair will be devoid of the immoral and disreputable sideshows of last year's Fair" - and then the same ads would then run the next year. "Hootchee-kootchee dances and such, " Blankinship smiles.
"It was a simpler time. The draw of the midway was just that it was a whole lot different to what they'd experienced on the farm."
Blankinship runs through more photographs - the old grandstand at the racetrack, which eventually was demolished or burned down; the new grandstand, erected for a 1905 visit by President Theodore Roosevelt, in which patrons could sit on the second level - or pay an extra quarter for the third floor, which offered "Tete a Tete Hall, " where spectators could have a chair and a little privacy. That grandstand definitely burned, in 1919 - during a motorcycle race on July 4. "That tells me two things, " Blankinship says. "That they had motorcycle races, and that they used the fairgrounds for more than just the Fair." He anticipates the next question: "No flea markets, though."
The popularity of those races caused the Society in 1922 to build, for $20,000, a new track. Unfortunately that seemed to put the Society in a financial hole from which it never recovered. In 1926 and 1927 it couldn't afford to hold the Fair.
The state took over the Fair operation and moved it to its current location in 1928. But to understand the current location you must go back to 1918. There was no Fair that year because of a terrible influenza epidemic - but also because the fairgrounds were being used as a tank training post. Raleigh officials learned the Army was looking for such a facility and offered temporary quarters at the fairgrounds while the Army scouted a permanent site.
To that end the federal government bought the land at the current fairgrounds, which it eventually expected to call Camp Polk. When the government changed its mind (a civilian camp, which became the Polk Youth Center, is the only reminder of the doomed Camp Polk) and sold the land, the state picked it up and had it on hand when it was time to build another fairground.
So in 1928 the state built the fabulous Spanish-looking buildings we all adore now. It's kept buying and building since.
And Blankinship has kept researching - just because. He can talk about the old races, the old contests, the old rides. The Waterfall, a several-story manufactured waterfall that was brightly lighted at night and was torn down decades ago is the attraction he misses most. "It was where you met people, " he says. " 'If you get lost, we'll meet at the Waterfall.' " - The News & Observer 10/18/1996
Expect an extra large influx of Scotty McCreery fans at next year's N.C. State Fair. Fair officials announced this morning that the Garner-based "American Idol" winner will perform at Dorton Arena during the 2012 fair.
The 
Supposedly, Thursday's attendance at the 
