As the Louisa County Fair celebrates its 125th anniversary 4-H clubs are busy exhibiting projects and livestock, but that wasn’t always the main attraction.

Louisa County Extension Program Manager Kathy Vance tells of the fair’s origins, “When you think back on when fairs started, they didn’t start around livestock necessarily. They started about celebrating the life that the people lived and trying to provide entertainment for the time. So in Louisa County that meant horse racing and they had the finest and fastest one-mile track in the state.”

There were an estimated 11,000 people that attended the horse race at the first Louisa County Fair in 1892, according to Vance. Back then people traveled to the fair by horse and buggy and by train, “Horse racers and people who owned the horses came from Chicago and St. Louis and Minneapolis and Omaha because it was such a great racetrack. So there were guests racing their horses and there were great prizes to be won.”

It was more expensive to attend the Louisa County Fair 125 years ago, as they charged a $2 entry fee. This year’s fair is free to attend and takes place July 26-31. The KCII Big Red Radio will broadcast live from the fair Wednesday and Thursday in the KCII Summer Town Tour.