Coliseum’s 100th year a chance to celebrate, remember
Lisa Gress displays one of the clocks made to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Wayne County Fair Coliseum. Gress and her husband Joe had 12 of the clocks — which will be auctioned off prior to the junior fair auctions and designated shows at the fair — made from some of the cypress trees removed to make way for the Wayne County Event Center.
It was built in just two months, but the Wayne County Fair Coliseum has endured for 100 years, a reason to celebrate and remember.
The Wayne County Agricultural Society started the festivities at its Volunteer Recognition Banquet, where it auctioned off the first of 12 commemorative clocks honoring the Coliseum’s 100th year. It also heard congratulatory remarks from the Wayne County commissioners and may have found the oldest male and female to have shown in the Coliseum, a search the Coliseum committee is conducting as part of the celebration.
Tom Wolf and Ruth Bishop, both 85 years old, were in the audience for the banquet, and both began showing dairy cattle in the Coliseum when they were young.
Wolf was recognized as an emeritus fair board member and part of a Coliseum committee.
Bishop was honored with one of the fair board’s Outstanding Volunteer Service Awards. She said her connection to the fair traces back to showing Guernseys from her family’s dairy herd. “I really enjoyed it,” she said. “I always had fun.”
Wolf still likes to take a cow in the Coliseum show ring. At times he’s had close to 20 head of cattle at the fair for children and grandchildren to show, but this year he will take just five. “I just love showing,” he said.
His daughter Lisa and her husband Joe, a fair board member, made the commemorative clocks from the cypress trees that once stood where the Fair Event Center was built.
When the trees were harvested, Lisa Gress said, “Joe and I couldn’t stand to see all of those trees being chopped up, so we took some of them home, had them cut up, kiln-dried and cut.”
And when the fair board began talking about the 100th anniversary, she said, “We decided to make some clocks.”
Amish craftsmen put finishing touches on the clocks and wrapped a steel band around each to hold the wood in place. The clocks have a laser-engraved 100th Coliseum logo designed by the Gresses’ daughter Eileen.
Jim and Sue Smail had the winning bid of $2,000 to take home the first of the commemorative clocks. The remaining clocks will be sold at the fair prior to the junior fair auctions and a Junior Horse Show. Clocks also will be up for bid before the Ohio State Tractor Pullers Association Pull on opening night and the square dance in the Coliseum on Sunday evening.
County commissioner Sue Smail presented on behalf of the three commissioners a proclamation extending appreciation and congratulations to the Wayne County Fair Board on the 100th anniversary of the Coliseum and to anyone who had a part in making this possible.
The proclamation highlighted the Coliseum’s history.
Originally known as the Live Stock Pavilion, it was approved for construction in August 1923. Local contractor Charles O. Langell was awarded the contract for $25,445 with the stipulation that the stock barn part of the building be completed by Sept. 28, just 55 days later.
“It wound up coming in just over budget at $26,000,” Smail read in the proclamation. The new facility was needed to provide space for the growing dairy cow industry. Until that time dairy cows shared a space with the draft horses and were assigned to a single aisle in the draft horse barn.
The 1923 fair was Oct. 2-5. That year a Wooster Daily Record newspaper advertisement touted the new $25,000 Live Stock Pavilion and listed admission to the fair as 50 cents.
“Over the course of 100 years, the Coliseum has hosted many events,” Smail read, “including horse, beef and dairy cattle shows; fiddling contests and square dances; church services; and most recently the Quilts of Honor presentations to veterans.”
Jim Marty, a retired dairy farmer, remembers watching draft horse pulls in the Coliseum. “I was quite young, but I never wanted to miss them,” he said.
The Wayne County Historical Society will present the board with a plaque distinguishing the Coliseum as a historical landmark during the fair’s opening ceremonies at 9 a.m. in front of the Event Center.
Key chains, magnets and decks of cards with the Coliseum’s 100th logo can be purchased at the fair with proceeds funding improvements to the landmark building. These include painting, installing new fans, LED lights and electrical wiring, cleaning and repairing the bleachers, and removing some bleachers for wheelchair seating.
“The fair is the fabric of our community,” fair secretary Matt Martin said. “The fair board understands the treasures that we have and the need to preserve them.”