Sandwich and the Fair That Never Stopped

The DeKalb County city of Sandwich, Illinois, has been holding its county fair for well over a century, making the Sandwich Fair one of the longest-running agricultural fairs in the state. The town itself was incorporated in eighteen fifty-nine and named by John Wentworth for Sandwich, New Hampshire. Before that it was called Newark Station, a community that grew out of Almon Gage's push for a stop on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.

Wentworth, a politician, also worked to move the Illinois and Wisconsin border to its current location. The railroad paid off fast: the population grew from nine hundred fifty two in eighteen sixty to one thousand eight hundred forty four in eighteen seventy. The railroad arrived in the eighteen sixties and made Sandwich a local commerce hub.

But what kept the name alive in the regional imagination was the fair. Held each September on permanent fairgrounds at the edge of town, the Sandwich Fair draws crowds that top one hundred thousand visitors on a single day during its four-day run and features livestock competitions, antique machinery, and live entertainment in a format that has changed surprisingly little over more than a century. In a part of Illinois where county fairs are a serious cultural institution, Sandwich's fair stands out for its scale and longevity.