On March 11, 1909, the Washington State Legislature passes a bill appropriating funding for the Southwest Washington Fair. The Southwest Washington Fair Commission, also formed by the legislation, will "promote and further the advancement of all agricultural, stock-raising, horticultural, mining, and mechanical and industrial pursuits of the state and particularly southwest Washington, and for this object the management shall provide an annual fair or exhibition." The act stipulates that the fair be held in the Centralia-Chehalis area and that the area served includes Lewis, Cowlitz, Thurston, Pacific, Wahkiakum, and Chehalis (later renamed Grays Harbor) counties. The first fair will be held in September 1909 at the site that will still be used a century later by the Southwest Washington Fair.
A Union of Drops
The fair had predecessors in Lewis County, run by farmers seeking to promote the county's agricultural interests. In 1877 32 farmers formed the Lewis County Agricultural Association because, in the words of James T. Berry and William West of the association, "A single drop of water is a small affair, the influence of which, unassociated with others of its kind, is ineffectual, but a union of such drops make the mighty ocean, upon whose bosom is borne the commerce of the world" (Berry and West). By forming an association, the farmers could benefit from each other's knowledge and unite in promoting the county's agricultural interests. They held a fair in Chehalis in September 1877. The Lewis County Agricultural Board, founded in 1882, also held a local fair, starting in 1891.
An official fair that represented several counties and had a permanent location began with the state legislature's act. Although the act stipulated that Lewis County residents donate the land, it appears the Southwest Washington Fair Commission purchased the acreage between Centralia and Chehalis where the fairgrounds are today.
Financing the Fair
The legislature gave the commission a budget of $15,000, provided that "no part of the money donated by the state shall be used as payment of purses in trial of speed between man or beast" (1909 Wash. Laws, Ch. 237). The commission built exhibition halls, stables, a cattle barn, a 4,000-person grandstand, and a half-mile racetrack for harness racing for the first fair.
Before World War II the fair stopped and started due to economic conditions during the Depression and then during the war. Since then it has opened every year and now attracts more than 90,000 people.
