The Encyclopedia of Fall: T is for Tunbridge World’s Fair
This beloved Vermont tradition is a “world” unto itself.
At first glance, the little east-central Vermont town of Tunbridge, population 1,300 or so, seems a little big for its britches, what with attaching the ambitious “World’s” to the name of its four-day country fair held each September. The fair’s origins go back to 1867; over the years, the annual event paused only for the 1918 flu epidemic, World War II, and the Hurricane of ’38, which sent tents, chickens, cows, pigs, and untold numbers of pies and jellies hurtling across sodden fields. The fairgrounds sits by a steep rise off Route 110, amid rolling tree-topped hills, and as you walk the midway, with its games of chance, bumper cars, and food stalls, or stroll through the animal barns, or take in the racing pigs, the ox pulls, the excitable trotting horses, it’s not unlike wandering a village that springs to life each year just for you. But still, “World’s” Fair?
Those words came from Burnham Martin, former Vermont lieutenant governor and state senator, who spoke at the fair in 1867, and perhaps got a bit carried away as he extolled the “Little World’s Fair.” And ever since it has been so. Speaking of “worldly,” in a different sense, there was a time . . . Well, let’s just say that not everyone was enamored of what went on beneath those pretty hills. For years families shied away; the girlie shows, the rampant drinking, and the boisterous air led one local to tell a writer, only partly in jest, “They won’t let you in if you don’t have a pint of whiskey in one hand and somebody else’s wife in the other.” But all that has changed. Over the past three decades, the girlie shows, the rowdies, and the happy drunks have faded from the scene, leaving sheepdog trials, harness racing, a dairy show, horse pulls, bands, cloggers, and all sorts of talented performers who take their acts to the grandstand stage.
Now during the last days of summer, just as it touches fall, there you are at the top of the Ferris wheel, the voices of neighbors and strangers drifting up; you see everyone below, some dressed up, some dressed down, and across the fairgrounds the aromas of fried dough and sausage mingle with the smell of cattle and hay, and maybe your hand touches someone you care for … Well, at that moment, is there anywhere else you’d rather be, in the whole world?
September 13-16, 2012; tunbridgeworldsfair.com
Mel Allen
Mel Allen is the fifth editor of Yankee Magazine since its beginning in 1935. His first byline in Yankee appeared in 1977 and he joined the staff in 1979 as a senior editor. Eventually he became executive editor and in the summer of 2006 became editor. During his career he has edited and written for every section of the magazine, including home, food, and travel, while his pursuit of long form story telling has always been vital to his mission as well. He has raced a sled dog team, crawled into the dens of black bears, fished with the legendary Ted Williams, profiled astronaut Alan Shephard, and stood beneath a battleship before it was launched. He also once helped author Stephen King round up his pigs for market, but that story is for another day. Mel taught fourth grade in Maine for three years and believes that his education as a writer began when he had to hold the attention of 29 children through months of Maine winters. He learned you had to grab their attention and hold it. After 12 years teaching magazine writing at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, he now teaches in the MFA creative nonfiction program at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Like all editors, his greatest joy is finding new talent and bringing their work to light.
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