When the Alaska State Fair became ‘the best ever’

I once chaperoned a group of University of Alaska Anchorage students on a field trip. On that journey, one student became famous for his infectious enthusiasm for all things. He labeled each event, each meal, each stop invariably as “the best ever.” By the end of the trip, the entire group was primed to beat him to the punch and announce that whatever it was, it was the “best ever.” The mutual laughter and pleasure was contagious.

One person with energy and enthusiasm can make a difference.

Palmer will probably forever be linked to the New Deal “colony” of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The history of the colony often eclipses the reality that there were many settlers in this Valley long before the colonists’ arrival. Those pre-colonist settlers accomplished quite a lot. One of their most significant legacies is the Alaska State Fair. It is often incorrectly assumed that the colonists started the fair because that first fair opened in Palmer the year after the colony began.

In fact, the fair was set into motion by the enthusiastic efforts of Milton D. Snodgrass and members of the Northland Pioneer Grange No. 1 in Palmer, an organization that still exists. Earlier this year, longtime member of the Grange, Sig Restad, knowing of my interest in the fair, lent me a precious book. The book is the original minutes of the Grange from April 26, 1935, through Sept. 14, 1939. The book is a meticulous recording of the details of each meeting for four years. The handwriting is elegant and clear for every meeting, always concluding with the entry, “Mrs. C.V. King, Secretary.”

Before there was a Matanuska Electric Association, a Matanuska Telephone Association or a Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union, a group of settlers decided to create a fair. The members clearly had many projects — they organized Fourth of July gatherings, community harvest dinners, essay contests, political letters to support agriculture and the experiment station, and considered ways of bringing a Red Cross presence to the Valley. In March 1937, the Grange even sent a letter to President Roosevelt asking him to address the absence of school transportation funding for the 236 Valley children living more than two miles from a school after they had been “promised a good school system in Alaska.”

In an area with no electrical or telephone utilities, no paved roads, no road to Anchorage (only a railroad link), a group of pioneers gathered regularly to discuss ways of creating a sense of community. Years later, in August 1951, longtime Palmer resident Milton D. Snodgrass (usually referred to as M.D. Snodgrass or simply “M.D.”) wrote an article for the Matanuska Valley Record, a predecessor to the Frontiersman. His recollections, combined with the Grange minutes, tell a story of persistence and success.

M.D. Snodgrass had played a minor role in the founding of the Western Alaska Fair in Anchorage in the early 1920s. The Western Alaska Fair did not endure, but Snodgrass had seen potential and considered the agriculture community in the Matanuska Valley a prime location for re-establishment of a fair. M.D.’s article in the Matanuska Valley Record noted that the revival of the fair in the Valley actually first began with the creation of a local Grange in 1933, after local farmers decided they needed a “farm organization” and ruled out a “farm bureau” or a “farmers union.”

Most of the 54 charter members of the Grange were settlers that M.D. himself had recruited when he had been an employee for the Alaska Railway settlement program. In 1951, Snodgrass referenced the first formal meeting of the chartered Grange on April 26, 1935. The actual book of Grange minutes now confirms what M.D. wrote in 1951.

Mrs. C.V. King meticulously recorded the minutes of that April meeting. She noted that, “Minutes of the two previous meetings were read and approved.” Those prior minutes are apparently lost forever. What can be pieced together from M.D.’s articles in 1951 is that sometime in May 1935 there was also a conversation between himself and the manager of the newly arriving colonists about a possible location for a fair.

Snodgrass wanted a fair and would appear repeatedly in the Grange minutes as the man who nudged the project along:

• Feb. 14, 1936: “Mr. Snodgrass also reported that the Fair Association is beginning to take shape and they hope to hold a three day fair this fall.”

• June 12, 1936: “A motion was made and passed to have a committee appointed to take up arrangements for a fair and to push the fair along. Com. Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Brix, Mr. Chas Wilson.”

• July 10, 1936: “Mr. Snodgrass reported that the committee was working on the fair. A meeting will be held at 7:30, July 11 in this hall to organize a Fair Association all interested come. Plan Sept. 4 as opening day for the Fair. The committee is selling chances on a car to raise money. Drawing probably to be opening day.”

• July 24, 1936: “Mr. Snodgrass moved that we suspend all rules that interfere with our taking up any business needing our attention at this meeting. Motion carried.”

• July 24, 1936: “Motion made that we buy three tickets on the Dodge car being sold to raise funds for the fair and if one of our tickets should draw the car we turn it into cash and start a building fund with the money. Motion carried.”

• July 24, 1936: “Mr. Snodgrass reported that a Fair Association has been organized. Preparations and plans for the Fair are moving along nicely. Stock is now $1 per share, preferred stock $10 per share. Every member of Grange is expected to work hard and help in every way possible to make the fair a success.”

Accordingly, on July 27, 1936, the Grange had created the Matanuska Valley Agricultural and Industrial Fair Association Inc. and $1,200 was raised in stock certificate sales.

Some people in this Valley still possess the original green-and-white share certificates with elaborately detailed scenes of farms and farm life. The organization changed name and structure over the decades and is now the Alaska State Fair Inc. with members, not shareholders.

That first fair coincided with the opening of the Knik Bridge and a road link to Anchorage. That first fair was in the basement of what is now the Mat-Su Borough office building.

M.D. Snodgrass hand typed a 12-page exhibitors guide and fair schedule. M.D. was listed as director, president and manager of the fair. About 3,500 people came to the first fair. Most of the $6,000 raised went to pay exhibitor premiums and other costs.

The continuity of the fair was not assured. Although a Fair Association had been independently established, it is now clear from the Grange minutes that it was the Grange that still had the power to determine the destiny of the fair.

• July 8, 1937: “The question of whether we would have a Fair in the Valley this fall was brought up and discussed. A committee was appointed to stir up the fair Association and to see the Officers of the ARRC about grounds and corporation support.”

• Aug. 12, 1937: “Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Irwin reported having seen Mr. Jacobs and Dr. Colvins and the corporation will give a permanent fair ground (sic) and permanent building so the Fair Association have decided to hold a 1937 fair. A manager (M.D.) has been selected and the printing and other preparatory work is well started.”

It is clear that the durability of the fair was not certain in those first few years. The Grange and Mr. Snodgrass persisted:

• Feb. 10, 1938: “Mr. Snodgrass announced a meeting of the Fair Association on Feb. 28 and urged all to attend.”

A fair tradition of holding an annual meeting in February continues. Although, at the February 2012 annual meeting of the Alaska State Fair there was an unsuccessful attempt to change that.

Even with a separate Fair Association, the Grange remained a driving force in the development of the fair.

• Nov. 10, 1938: “Legislation Committee reported that a bill asking the Legislature for a territorial fair at Palmer is being prepared.”

That task eventually evolved into a decades-long running competition with the Tanana Valley Fair in Fairbanks for official designation as Alaska’s official territorial and then state fair.

Just as the fair seemed to be developing some stability as an institution, World War II started. The fair was suspended in 1942 until the war ended. It resumed in 1946. In 2011, the fair celebrated its 75th birthday, but it was only the 71st fair.

The 2011 Alaska State Fair featured Garrison Keillor live at the Borealis Theater on a clear and hot August afternoon. Keillor, who is a champion of American fairs and the author of a National Geographic article on fairs, was clearly as pleased with our fair as the audience was enamored with him. I would be tempted to declare that at that moment, the 2011 Alaska State Fair was the best ever.

That would be a debatable assertion.

In the last Grange minutes entry Sept. 14, 1939, Mrs. King reported: “Bro. Snodgrass reported that the Fair was the best ever held here but did not quite make expenses.”

“Brother Snodgrass,” the Pioneer Grange and Mrs. King were on to something, and even after only four fairs they suspected it might have already been the best ever.

Talis Colberg, Ph.D., J.D., is director of the Matanuska-Susitna College. He is a life member of the Alaska State Fair and former president of the fair board.