1963 San Luis Obispo County Fair

July 18, 2008 – 8:05 am

8-15-63-fair.jpg

August 14, 1963

8-14-63-fair-opens.jpgThe only answer I can come up with is the witness relocation program.

The question?

Why is the Santa Barbara County Fair in Santa Maria, not Santa Barbara?

Why is the San Luis Obispo County Fair in Paso Robles?

Just to add to the mystery, they have renamed the latter event. Today it is the California Mid-State Fair. If you guessed it was held at the Mid-State Fairgrounds you’d be wrong. Now they call it The Paso Robles Event Center.

Witness relocation program.

If you wait all year for the smell of barbecue and cotton candy your season is here.

The entertainment lineup has been upgraded. The 1963 opening day featured Bernie Nattell at the organ and The Flying Wards, aerialists. On the grandstand were Eddie Dean, Western B-movie and singing star with the Frontiersmen and Joanie, the Hollywood Square Dancers, acrobatic dancer Betty Gromer, ventriloquist Bob Bellamy and The Acrobatic Kramers.

The fair was a five-day event back then.

Save a corndog for me.

  1. 5 Responses to “1963 San Luis Obispo County Fair”

  2. I, too, sense a conspiracy. The names have been withheld to protect the innocent.

    Nice blog banner, by the way.

    By Fair Trade on Jul 18, 2008

  3. It is not the “San Luis Obispo Fair”, it is called the Mid-state Fair, and Paso Robles is “mid-state”.

    By local yocal on Nov 18, 2008

  4. Local Yocal, you must not be too local, or you would always refer to the Fair as the SLO County Fair, regardless of what the Fair board wants to call it, or WHERE it calls it, now…….

    …like us yokels :)

    By SSG David Medzyk on Nov 19, 2008

  5. Thanks for the comments Yocal & SSG David.
    It reminds me of an episode of Dragnet, the names have been changed. View an event over a long period of time and they will call it different things. Click on the 1963 front page and in the story the event title is the San Luis Obispo County Fair. (At one point, decades before, the fair was held at Cal Poly. Imagine, cotton candy, corn dogs AND dipomas!) Click on the current website and it is the California Mid-State Fair.
    FYI the geographical center of California is in Madera County near Yosemete.

    By David Middlecamp on Nov 20, 2008

  6. If you could find the cover of the FOCUS section when now-defuct Emerson School opened its new grass play field, I’d be eternally grateful. Parents came together to provide the elbow-grease needed to get the vast expanse of green going for the kids. I was a first or second grader. It’s my first memory of community involvement.

    By Jen on Nov 22, 2008

Post a Comment

Photos from the Vault is proudly powered by WordPress Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS). Designed by Bob