Wabasha & The Steele County Fair
Friday, August 18, 2023
We stated the day with a visit and stroll thorough Wabasha and ended with a visit to the Steele County Fair in Owatonna.
The National Eagle Center and its grounds continue to undergo renovations and expansion. Looks like it will be quite impressive once the entire project is completed.
Not in this photo, but the pleasure boat traffic on the Mississippi was active as people enjoyed the wonderful late summer weather.
The Catholic cemetery in Wabasha has an old section with some very interesting and weathered monuments.
This empty lot on 4th Street East in Wabasha serves as a woodpile for someone. They build these rather elaborate stacks of firewood. As we are approaching fall the piles are well-stocked and throughout the winter they will slowly be depleted.
This home overlooks the back of the marina in Wabasha. They have some wonderful landscaping.
A large southbound barge.
Most of the flowers along Lawrence Blvd East have gone past their prime, but this one wasn’t quite ready to give up yet.
The Steele County Fairground shares some property with the Steele County Historical Society and they have the Village of Yesteryear. The buildings and historical artifacts have appeared in this blog before, but here are some more. It is always such an enjoyable place to wander around and lends itself to some interesting photos.
The light falling on this red velvet seat demanded to be in color.
All of the buildings in the Town of Yesteryear were once located in other parts of Steele County and subsequently moved to the fairgrounds to serve as the focal point of the exhibits.
During the fair, the buildings are open and staffed by volunteers from the Historical Society. It is fun to go in and look around at all the old antiques.
This is from inside the school and shows the old lunch pails, thermoses and hand-carried lanterns they used in the era.
“The old ball & chain….
When the fails were full, work release might formerly mean attaching a ball and chain to prevent prisoners from running away while at hard labor. At 65 pounds avoirdupois, this particular ball & chain may have been used to tether livestock or perhaps even a peripatetic spouse!”
-From display on site.
This typewriter had two entirely different sets of keys, one for lower-case and one for upper-case letters.
The country store also served as the post office.
Check out the treads on these tractor tires!
This picture was painted directly on the inside wall. They built a “frame” around it an made it look like a painting hanging on the wall. Imaginative.
These old seats don’t look all that comfortable for an entire day in the fields.
This device looks like it was involved in the installation of barbed-wire. These gears and chain made for an interesting image.
I enjoyed that the phone number for this old lumber company was “61”.
These are the gears that operate the drill press in the blacksmith’s shop. All these exposed gears and chains would never fly with OSHA today.
It was a three-person project to get this cow ready for showing. They have a dedicated grooming station and use barbers shears and trimmers to get the job done, it’s quite a process.
Each year the car building features a different genre. Some years it has been hot rods, others it is antique family sedans. This year it was the Chevrolet Corvette. I believe this one was a 1964.
On this Friday night the main stage had a band doing cover songs from the band Chicago. They were really quite good!
I really like the way that monochrome renders these nighttime shots of the band and stage lighting.
This incredibly intricate model appears to consist of completely hand-crafted pieces and the detail is amazing! It won grand champion in its class.
