OWENSVILLE, Ohio — Livestock trailers will begin rolling into the Clermont County Fairgrounds this week as 4-H and FFA families kick off the run-up to the Clermont County Fair, which opens July 26, the Clermont County Junior Fair Board said in a Facebook post.
Beef and dairy cattle are scheduled to arrive Friday from 6 to 11 p.m., along with market goats, meat breeding does, pack goats, harness goats, pygmy goats, dairy goats and other fiber animals, which are set to check in Friday from 6 to 10 p.m., according to a schedule the board released. Market hogs follow Saturday from 6 to 10 p.m., sheep from 7 to 8:30 a.m., market poultry from 7 to 9 a.m., exhibition poultry from 9 to 11 a.m., and exhibition and meat rabbits from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The board also posted directions for haulers bringing animals to the grounds. All trailers are to enter through the state Route 132 gate, with hogs, lambs and goats routed through the Holman Barn to the scale area, and cattle directed to the track area near the Lykins Pavilion before continuing to the cattle barn. The board asked exhibitors not to unload tack while animals are being weighed and said no trailers will be allowed to park in the gravel lot behind the Holman arena until all animals have been unloaded and weighed.
Ahead of the arrivals, members of the Junior Fair Board spent a day preparing the fairgrounds during a work day, and the board thanked its youth members for the effort heading into fair week.
The Clermont County Fair traces to June 9, 1849, when the Clermont County Agricultural Society was formed; the society held its first fair that September, drawing about 2,000 people. The fair moved to its current Owensville site on Locust Street in 1864, the same year its Floral Hall building was constructed. The grandstand, first built in 1911, was rebuilt after a 1969 fire, and the fairgrounds added a hog barn and show arena in 2020, according to the Clermont County Fair’s own history.
This year’s fair runs July 26 through Aug. 1.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the Clermont County Junior Fair Board.