NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

December 30, 1998

Plains Folk: Fairgrounds Finery

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University

©1997 Plains Folk

I tell you, that Highway 52 is turning into a regular menagerie. Going northwest you start at the World's Largest Buffalo in Jamestown, and before you know it, you've arrived at the big bar bull in Buchanan, recently moved over from Pettibone in what witnesses have told me was a time-consuming and altogether entertaining process (a future column). In Carrington you are saluted by the big Indian at the Chieftain, and at Harvey you are menaced by Og the Gorilla. How long can it be before someone in Drake sets the World's Largest Mallard out on a nearby slough?

You remember the towns by those roadside oddities, don't you? But you remember Fessenden, along the same route, for its beautiful fairgrounds.

On the kind invitation of Richard Maine, Wells County extension agent, I went to the fairgrounds in Fessenden to present an extension program. It came at a busy time of year, but I'm glad I went, because the program was in old Festival Hall, and I learned the story of that impressive stone edifice.

The Fessenden County Fair got started in 1903 and was mainly just horse races at first. The Wells County Fair Association was formed in 1907 and bought the fairgrounds. The grandstand was erected in 1926. The county history says, "Horse racing has always been a part of the fair."

I dug into the county extension records at the NDSU Archives to get the specific story of Festival Hall, though. In 1936 county agent Edward W. Vancura reported that he had won approval of a federal Works Projects Administration proposal in the amount of $24,617.

This project was to run a water main to the fairgrounds, improve the track (getting it out of the mud), build sanitary toilets, put rock gardens and rock pillars at the entrance to the grounds, and most important, erect "a two-story building with the sides and end walls constructed of faced and cut ordinary field rock. The building will be trimmed with white facing and a special stage will be constructed. A kitchen to be used by community gatherings is also in the plans."

The following year the big stone building, designed by county agent Vancura, was in progress, and the fair reported a record attendance of 49,000. The building, he said, "is a distinct type of architecture not found previously in this community." When building commenced, Vancura observed, there was only one man in town with knowledge of masonry, but he taught others, and so, "If the building never served any other purpose it certainly accomplished a new training for 25 to 30 men.

"The County Agent believes it will serve its purpose for many years to come, not only for the present generation but for the next generation to come," he concluded.

The following year, 1938, he reported completion of the hall and praised its fine stage equipped with curtain, footlights, and floodlights. Old Festival Hall indeed has served its builders and the next generation and remains a splendid place of assembly today. It has a striking exterior, the dressed fieldstone walls ornamented here and there by white-bordered diamonds of small rubble stones.

The interior is great space. I spoke and sang from the side stage midway along the west wall, and I can tell you, the acoustics are excellent. This would be a good place for a concert or a theatrical performance.

The other thing accomplished by Festival Hall, along with the other fairgrounds fixtures, is the satisfaction of that nagging ambition of prairie towns, putting the town on the map.

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Source: Tom Isern (701) 231-8339

Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136