the grounds, but she was in trouble from the start. There was not enough power to lift her ship and she crash-landed it in Roy Kingdon's corn field without too much damage, from where it was hauled away.

In the southwest corner of the fair ground was a grove of catalpa, ash and soft maple trees. Dr. A. C. King, El Paso dentist and long time secretary of the fair in its later years, built a cement dance platform there and lighted it. He provided shelter for the orchestra, put a rail around the platform, and proceeded to give lovers of dance music a golden opportunity. If you got on the floor you paid; if you stood at the rail and listened you could get by free. Customers and spectators were both plentiful after the attractions of the fair lost their savor. In late years there were some evening openings of the fair; these usually included fireworks and the free acts, but the former proved a financial headache, costing much money and bringing little return. Keeping open at night was a concession to the carnivals booked in those late years, and was a sound business proposition for a time. People could get to the night fair when perhaps they could not to the day entertainment. They spent money on the rides, the towering Ferris wheel, the whip, merry-go-round and the midway with its shows. At a first night wrestling show on the midway around 1914 or 15 the barker was challenging all comers to wrestle kid so-and-so of the show, who agreed to throw the opponent in three minutes or forfeit $50. The crowd at once starting pushing forward a challenger. It was Walter R. Evans, El Pasoan who was then world's welterweight wrestling champion. The barker didn't recognize Evans but his wrestler did; he shook hands with him and said, "We mean anybody but him."

In 1927, the year of the forty-sixth El Paso fair, we saw the curtain pulled down on the last act. The show was over. It seemed a successful fair, just as those at Watseka, Princeton and Henry seemed successful, but we were deeply in debt, and the fair officials felt they could no longer sign the necessary notes and keep the annual attraction going. The fair closed for good. George Curtiss, a long time advocate and booster of the fair, wrote in his El Paso Journal: "During the past seven or eight years the fair, like many others over the state, suffered financial losses to such extent that the association has decided to quit, last fall's exhibition being the final effort."

The El Paso Township High School Board was advised that it might purchase the balance of the fair ground upon assuming $13,500 of the fair association's debt. The board had purchased a portion of the grounds and the school was built on that plot, the old main gate of the fair being the north end of Elm Street. The purchase was turned down by the voters, so the fair buildings were torn down, with the exception of the cattle barn in the northeast corner, now the County Highway shed. The material was sold, the grandstand going to the

Page 87

Go to previous page

Go to next page

Go to El Paso Story gateway page