Warm summer weather provides ideal conditions for highway crews to pave bumpy and broken roads with fresh coats of asphalt as seen in this photo on Highway 169 between Renton and Maple Valley. However, as anyone who travels during paving periods knows, lane closures snarl traffic and stall commuters and travelers.
So it was in July 1978 when boiling-hot asphalt steamed up an already steamy day as heavy equipment worked to widen the Maple Valley Highway. Whether it was bureaucratic indifference or the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing, this particular asphalt work was scheduled the same week as the King County Fair causing reported backups of 10 to 45 minutes. That year’s Enumclaw Fair attracted a crowd of more than 105,000. Fortunately, the road department retreated the next day and delayed the road work a few days. “It seemed like the fair thing to do,” a department official punned.
The King County Fair is the oldest fair west of the Mississippi. It was founded by the King
County Agricultural Society in 1863 during the Civil War when Washington was still decades from statehood and news of the Battle of Gettysburg captured the nation’s attention. At the time King County’s population was less than 1,000. The fair’s original location was in the Georgetown area of Seattle, and later moved to Renton.
Enumclaw’s version of the fair started modestly in 1946 when Lester Schroeff and Martin Teeter, high school agriculture teachers organized a Spring Dairy Show for FFA and 4-H kids to showcase their projects. It was held in rough barns on the Bruhn family farm, south of Pete’s Pool and the King County Field House.
The King County Fair grew exponentially in 1965 with an expanded footprint and new half-million-dollar buildings, including three former structures from the Seattle World’s Fair. Over the decades the fair experienced its ups and downs. In the 1970s, the fair expanded to five days from the traditional three and crowds regularly exceeded 100,000 visitors. But by the early 2010s, attendance collapsed to about 7,500.
Ownership of the fairgrounds was transferred from King County to the City of Enumclaw in 2006, and three years later, Enumclaw assumed full responsibility for operations. Today, the 72-acre site is managed by the Enumclaw Expo and Events Association, a non-profit organization that took over in 2015. Other popular events include the Scottish Highland Games, Enumclaw Junior Rodeo, and Enumclaw Pro Rodeo. This year’s King County Fair runs four days from Thursday, July 11 to Sunday, July 14.
This photo by Bruce McKim appeared in the Wednesday, July 26, 1978 Seattle Times, and comes courtesy of JoAnne Matsumura, an Issaquah historian and photo maven.
