City: Durham, CT

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (860) 349-9495

Insider Pick:

Description: This is the largest agricultural fair in Connecticut, begun in 1916, and takes place on the last full weekend in Sept on the Durham Town Green and the adjoining fields (it’s grown too big). You’ll visit the Fair Farm Museum, with antique equipment and collectibles, and a Discovery Center with seminars on food, farming, and garden care. You’ll be astonished at the animal pulls, where horses, oxen, and ponies compete the way they have for thousands of years. There are also exhibits of livestock—unbelievable premium cattle, goats, llamas, poultry, rabbits, pigs, and sheep—and of products, like baked and canned goods, crafts, needlework, photography, plants, flowers, fruit, and, of course, giant pumpkins. Every year about 12,000 entries compete for blue ribbons and a best-in-show rosette. There’s a talent show for singers, dancers, and entertainers on the last day, and for the kids there are pie-eating contests and fun things like bubble stations. If these traditional fair events are not enough, there’s also a demolition derby, a truck pull, a carousel, midway rides, and more. And unlike many country fairs you might have attended in the past, they have flush toilets.