The New Montgomery County Fairgrounds

The Fairgrounds
© By Abraham Lincoln

After John Hanson sold his farm and the buildings were removed the fields were planted with corn or soybeans or some other crop. There was an apple orchard right where the big service station with the submarine sandwich shop on the end is now located. When we came down Arlington Road in thos days, sometimes we could see deer helping themselves to apples that had fallen to the ground.

In 1962, when we moved to Brookville, there were large dairy herds on the outskirts of town and there was the Bowman Turkey Farm  and on the other side of town the Garber farm sold strawberries and you picked as many quarts as you wanted to pay for. Those farms still exist but their owners and the land is used for other things.

The old Dull Homestead on SR 40 is better known these days as the Alternative Energy Center with 5 wind turbines that produces the electrical power the homestead uses. They began using the no-till practice to reduce soil erosion and allow nutrients to remain in the soil and that makes a rich and fertile land ideal for farming.

The old theater became a meat store that smoked their meat and became locally famous for their delicious bacon and baloney. Those smells wafted through town and were an enticement to buy some bacon before you left town.

Brookville sets astride what’s left of Montgomery County farming. They are not making any new farmland and what is here is all that is left. I was surprised to see there is a possibility that the Montgomery County Fairgrounds might end up there on the land where the John Hanson farm was. It would be, it seems to me, an ideal location; just off I-70 and Arlington Road.

I like it there much better than farther north at the intersection of SR 49 and SR 40. I like the idea of the fairgrounds somewhere around here. I am not a big fan of crowds of people but I can stand them for a week or two and the city can find a use for whatever income they derive from the fairgrounds being next door.