Description
Photograph of the Norway Brass Band performing near the front gate of the Norway Fair Grounds, fair of 1907. At this period, the band played each day at the fair. The photo provides a visual historical record of the dress and customs associated with small agricultural fairs of the early 20th century. The fair was sponsored by the Oxford County Agricultural Society, incorporated in August of 1842, the first fair being run in October of the same year. The fair grounds are no longer in existence, having been taken to provide a site for SAD 17 Oxford Hills Cooperative High School.
The photo was probably taken from a second floor window of the south ell of the Exhibition Hall, looking southwest. The only structure remaining of a considerable number of substantial buildings belonging to the fair grounds, the Exhibit Hall has been purchased and was renovated in the winter and spring of 2003/04 to provide facilities for Western Maine University. Miss Libby was a local photographer of considerable repute who began her work in 1888. She ran the Cottage Studio in Norway from c.1907 to 1943. Her photos, worked up into postcards, were sold at her own booth in the Exhibition Hall.
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