Past meets present at Alaska State Fair

Perhaps nowhere does Alaska’s past meet its present more so than at the Alaska State Fair.

Thanks to local writer Barbara Hecker, who put together a history quiz about the event. Here are some of the highlights:

It was M.D. Snodgrass, colonization agent and tireless agricultural enthusiast, who founded the Matanuska Valley Fair in 1936. That was the year after a New Deal project relocated 200 families to the Palmer area.

Back then, the fair occupied the first floor of Central School (now the Mat-Su Borough Building) and livestock was housed east of the school playgrounds.

The first Matanuska Valley Fair was timed to coincide with the opening of the Knik River Bridge, which linked the Valley with Anchorage for the first time. Combined with the Alaska Railroad, the new bridge allowed people across Alaska to attend.

When the fair train from Seward to Palmer arrived on opening day in 1936, baggage man E.F. Bittner found himself caretaker of two prize goats and one Holstein calf. The railroad offered free shipping for entries from along the railway.

Events that first year included crowning a fair queen, baby show, boxing matches, horse races, dances, rodeo and baseball, in addition to hundreds of agricultural entries.

Not all of the entries, though, were of the sort you can see today at the fair, now in its 76th year.

Elvie Kerttula Rebarchek recalled that her son, Jalmar Kerttula, 7, and other children displayed their pets that first year. That boy who showed his little black dog and her puppies that first year grew up to be president of the Alaska Senate. And his daughter, Rep. Beth Kerttula, serves in the Legislature currently.

The first fair secretary, Ruth Estelle, recorded hundreds of entries. She won her share of blue ribbons, too.

“Homesteaders and Colonists alike participated. We sure kept busy,” she said.

After her first son was born, Estelle didn’t go home right away.

“I got out of the hospital and went to the fair before I came home,” she said.

One of those blue ribbon winners the first year was Fanny Werner, a homesteader’s wife, who took first prize in every category she entered between 1936 and 1948. Later, when she became a fair judge, her daughter, Violet (Norbo), took over at the top of the blue ribbon leader board.

Known around the world, the Giant Cabbage Contest began in 1941, when Max Sherrod claimed a $25 prize offered by the manager of the Alaska Railroad with a 23-pound cabbage. He set world records in 1957 with a 61-pound cabbage, and was again lauded in 1975 with a 72-pound entry.

Combined, those two world-record heads from the contest’s early days are barely enough to cover the weight of the current 127-pound world-record cabbage grown in 2009 by Steve Hubacek of Wasilla.

This year, Radio Free Palmer will broadcast live from the fair, wireless Internet service is available throughout the fairgrounds and the Alaska App will pinpoint distances between your favorite food spots or give updated information about who is performing on Colony Stage right now.

Much has changed about the Alaska State Fair. But as Hecker writes, the heart of the fair remains unchanged — agriculture, lots of food, friends and family, and an old-fashioned good time. We’ll see you at the fair!