DAILY NEWS JOURNAL, GREG TUCKER, 6/8/2014
The grandstand at the Rutherford County fairgrounds is filled in this photo from the 1920s.
It began with “Yankee capital” and ended with a tavern, but off and on for nine decades it was a much anticipated Rutherford County event.
In 1868 a group of northern investors acquired part of the Alfred Miller estate about two miles south of Murfreesboro on the Shelbyville turnpike. On this 30-acre tract they built a “fair ground.” Enclosing the land with a “close plank fence,” they laid off a half-mile track for trotting horses, according to John Spence in his “Annals of Rutherford County” (1870). For stock exhibitions, they built an amphitheater with a 150-foot show ring and a stadium with covered seating for several thousand. At the rear of the stadium were offices and stalls for “traders.”
A two-story, L-shaped building, named “Floral Hall,” was constructed with spacious exhibit halls. On one corner stood an elevated observatory. A smaller building provided dressing rooms and equipment storage. For the livestock, there was a long line of stables. The grounds were landscaped with walkways. The fairgrounds development cost about $20,000.
The investors named the new facility “The Tennessee Central.” Where tracks crossed the turnpike, the railroad opened a new platform for passengers visiting the fairgrounds. In the first two years, several stock and produce exhibitions were well-attended. It appeared to be a profitable venture. An early version of a Tennessee state fair used the Rutherford fairgrounds in 1869.
In the early 1880s, the original owners sold the fairgrounds to the Rutherford County Fair Association (RCFA), a Tennessee corporation with over 150 local shareholders. William Mitchell was the president of the Association. J. S. Gooch, N. C. Collier, Horace Ready, T. W. Cox, T. J. Elam, C. W. Holden and Hickman Weakley served as vice presidents. N. C. Maney was responsible for the race course; L. M. Roberts was the grounds superintendent. A. M. Overall was in charge of “Booths & Privileges.”
At the Seventh Annual Rutherford County Fair in 1890, harness racing was the “big draw,” but competition for the “Best” in several hundred farm, homemaking and skill categories all promised cash or merchandise to the winners. Cash awards ranged up to $20 in categories such as “best four-year-old jack.
When it was not fair season (August-September), the fairgrounds were active with a variety of turn-of-the-century exhibitions, traveling shows, circuses and revivals. The racetrack stayed busy during much of the year. Local veterinarian and entrepreneur G. B. Giltner operated a year-round equestrian training facility (shoeing, surgery and livestock dentistry included) at the fairgrounds.
Despite the popularity of the county fair, the RCFA struggled financially. In 1917 the Association filed for bankruptcy. Pursuant to a court-ordered auction, the fairground was sold to five private investors (Henry King, J. W. Donnell, A.L. Todd, T.H. Harrison and Andrew Spain) for $6,000. Two years later the property was sold to J.D. Hooper, an adjoining property owner, for $5000.
Harness racing was ‘the big draw’ at the Rutherford County fairs from 1884 through 1948. This sketch was used to promote the racing events in the 1890s.
A reorganized Rutherford County Fair Association repurchased the 30-acre fairgrounds, plus an additional 50 acres, from Hooper in 1925 for $16,750. Now led by James M. Butler and R. S. Holden, the annual Rutherford County Fair was once again a popular success and a financial failure. The 1929 fair closed shortly before Black Tuesday and the onset of the Great Depression. No effort was made to revive the fair until 1934.
Pursuant to a vote of shareholders on April 1, 1930, the RCFA sold to Rutherford County approximately 12 acres north of the fairgrounds. The county paid $5,500 for the tract which became the county workhouse site.
When the fair was revived in 1934, the Rutherford Courier enthusiastically reported that “the three-day fair will hark back to the old days when the Rutherford fair was famed far and wide as one of Tennessee’s outstanding county institutions.” The 1934 fair booked an itinerant carnival with “six riding devices, ten sideshows, and 30 concessions.”
The domestic and agricultural exhibits and competitions were extensive. Daytime harness races and evening horse shows filled the arena. (Horse trainer Edgar Stone lived on the property with wife Cora and six children.) County and city schools declared a holiday so everyone could spend a day at the fair. The local media lavished praise on the principal planners, B. F. Houston and George Osborn, “who devoted their time to Rutherford’s fair at a sacrifice to their own business.”
The 1934 fair “proved successful from every angle,” according to news reports. Plans were begun immediately for the 1935 fair, which was again a success “from every angle” except one. Despite its popularity and strong attendance, the Rutherford County Fair was not a financial success. Even the year-round racing and other events could not cover fairground expenses.
In a December 1935 court-ordered auction, the bankrupt RCFA sold the fairgrounds to four private investors (Ed Elam, W.N. Lowe, A.T. Gilley and T.J. Elam) for $8250 in cash and debt assumption. A June 1936 headline in the Rutherford Courier announced: “There will be no 1937 county fair.”
Four years later the county considered purchasing the idle fairgrounds and converting it into a workhouse farm, but the $11,000 price tag was considered too steep. In 1940 the property was sold for $10,500 to Eph Hoover. In 1944 Hoover sold it to James B. Patterson and H. Wilson for $10,001.
In 1946, after a 10-year hiatus, fairgrounds owner H. Wilson revived the county fair through the Rutherford County Agricultural & Industrial Fair Corp. (RCAF). This private corporation was controlled by Wilson, Houston, Burns Carroll and Sam Lasseter. The 1946 fair featured a Lions Club-sponsored beauty pageant, and a walking horse competition under the direction of E. E. “Pluck” Miller.
To boost attendance at the 1947 fair, RCAF hired the J. J. Page Carnival and introduced “Gift Nights” when cash and merchandise would be given away to fairgoers. (Participants had to register for the drawing and be present to win.) As a special attraction, Eddie Arnold (the “Tennessee Plowboy”) was booked for a free performance.
Billed as “bigger and better in all respects,” the 1948 fair added 90 new competition categories, an expanded four-day schedule of harness racing and a bicycle race. The carnival rides and attractions were set for a five-day run, and fair promoters promised free entertainment featuring the Flying Laforms, Milton Estes and His Musical Millers, and a vaudeville program. Admission was 60 cents for adults, 30 cents for children (under 6 free), and 25 cents for parking.
Concerns, however, were evidenced by a joint proclamation by County Judge Hoyte Stewart and Murfreesboro Mayor John Holloway published before opening day urging “all the people to attend the fair and support it in order that Rutherford County might have the finest fair in history.” Fair prospects may have been dimmed when the Lions Club Exposition opened just a few weeks before the county fair.
In August 1949 there was no county fair and the fair-like Lions Club Exposition was the big event. Wilson and Carroll announced that the new Rutherford Raceway, the old fairgrounds, would host a three-day schedule of harness races in October.
In 1956 the estate of H. Wilson sold the fairgrounds property to Joe Werthan, a Nashville investor, for $31,500. A one-half acre tract, known as the Fairground Tavern Property, was excluded from the sale. Today the old fairground, still owned by Werthan interests, is mostly vacant, except for the Krystal restaurant and car wash on the former tavern property.
A sketch from the 1890s.