Facility updates are completed just in time for the Cedar Co. Fair

— Madelynn Graham

Cedar County News Intern

HARTINGTON — When the 2021 Cedar County Fair opens this week, fairgoers will see quite a few changes.

A new show arena was built last year and updated prior to this year's Fair. New sand volleyball courts were also installed and the old school house was moved and a handicap ramp installed.

Cedar County Fair Board members are continually working to update the facility.

Anyone who comes to the Cedar County Fair can see all the new additions to the fairgrounds. From the mid-1990s to this year, extensive changes have taken place almost every year.

4-H exhibits are not the only projects you can find at the fairgrounds: anyone can enter projects in the Open Class. More people are viewing the Open Class exhibits these days, since the new Open Class Building was built in 1995. Air conditioning was also installed when the building was constructed.

Six years later, in 2001, the Quilt and School Art Exhibit Building was built. Several surrounding schools send in their students’ artwork. Kids can go through and see their work displayed among their friends. In the same building, the public can vote on the quilts area residents made and brought into the fair for exhibit.

This year, there are over 100 entries in the small animal show. This includes rabbits, chickens, ducks, etc. But the small animal show was not always a big thing.

Things started to take off in 2008 when the fairgrounds added a new Small Animal Building.

The original horse barn worked great at first, but over the years, problems with the facility mounted. A new horse barn was built before the 2017 Fair.

“The horse numbers continued to increase over the years which made space a real problem,” said Specht.

That wasn’t all: there were stalls where the dirt had caved, making it a safety hazard for the horses.

“The board tries to continue to improve a building on the grounds or make capital improvements every year,” said Specht, “The 4-H Council and the Board jointly agreed that a new building was needed at the time.”

The flooding of 2019 also took quite a toll on the fairgrounds.

A hog barn was destroyed and several other buildings were damaged when flood waters receeded leaving mud a foot deep in some buildings.

Dozens of volunteers worked countless hours many clean-up nights to get the grounds back in order.

Instead of simply replacing the hog barn, Fair Board members viewed the calamity as an opportunity.

“The flood in 2019 forced the initiation of the project,” said Jim Specht, head of the Building and Grounds Committee.

The talk about having a new show arena had been going on for several years. Nothing happened until they saw this chance.

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