Shelby County Fair - Shelbyville, Indiana
The Shelby County Fair is one of the oldest continuous County Fairs in Indiana. In the summer of 1848, the county commissioners purchased forty acres of land south-southeast of the Shelbyville Distillery for $6,000. This land has since been leased to the fair association at no cost, provided a fair is presented every year. The first fair was held in the fall of 1848 and has continued to the present time.
Union Army deserters who wanted to spend the time until the end of the Civil War gambling, built the track in the 1860’s. It owes its reputation for being one of the fastest tracks in the state to its design, modeled after the Kentucky Derby track at Churchill Downs. The present grandstand was built in 1879, when the racetrack was being renovated. By design, it was built five feet from the track on the west end and fifteen feet from the track on the east end to “give a good view of the track.”
The horse stalls were originally located on the west end of the Fairgrounds, until one local citizen initiated their move. D.S Walker protested the smell and resolved to do something about it. One evening as he walked near the barns, he threw his cigar through an open barn window. The barns burned to the ground, but no horses or people were injured in the blaze. The barns were rebuilt on the east side of the fairgrounds, in their present location.
During World War II the Indiana
State Fairgrounds was used as a military base, so the Grand Circuit Races were contested at the Shelby County Fairgrounds. Consequently, some of the sport’s most famous horses competed over the “lightning fast” half-mile track.Among some of the more prominent horses trained on the Shelby County oval include: Victory Song, Worthy Boy, Jimmy Creed, Guinea Gold, Indian Land, Steppin Smith, ...and many more. Many noteworthy trainers have educated their charges at Shelbyville including: Sep Palin, Ralph Baldwin, Fred Johnson, Pearl and Paul Hungerford, Harold and Leon Boring, Harold Mc Ginnis, Eddie Barnes, and many more.
The most famous “runner-up” at the Shelby County fair was 8 year old Wilber Shaw in the fair’s 1910 Goat Races. He later won the Indianapolis 500 not once but three times.