Yorktown Grange Fair: Westchester’s only true country fair showcasing home grown vegetables, flowers, baked goods, livestock, poultry, needlework and photography since 1923. There’s an antique tractor parade, livestock exhibits, horse competitions, hay rides, jugglers, magic shows, pie eating, balloon blowing, nail driving and rubber chicken throwing competitions – the stuff memories are made of. Plus carnival rides, food and music. Whenever I think of the Yorktown Grange Fair this song always comes into my head: Corn In The Fields. Listen To The Rice When The Wind Blows ‘Cross The Water, King Harvest Has Surely Come.

History of the Grange

The Grange, was officially organized in December 4, 1867 in Washington, D.C. It was the first organized movement of agriculture in the nation. It was founded by seven men, led by Oliver Hudson Kelley, who realized that farmers needed help with social and educational concerns as well as agricultural matters. The word “Grange” itself refers to a farm.

State Grange Deputy A.E. Hall of Armenia, N.Y, conferred the Yorktown Grange in December 1898 after a meeting with several area farmers. Seventeen local farmer organized its official operations on December 30, 1898. Seven more farmers joined the Yorktown Grange at their meeting on January 12, 1899.

Among the many projects undertaken during their beginning years were “The Westchester and Putnam Fire Relief Association”. It later became the State Grange Insurance Company. In 1903 they organized the “Cooperative Buying and Selling Program” which flourished into 1923. It yielding up to 20% savings for farmers in the program.

The first Yorktown Grange Fair was held in 1920

By 1920, the Grange had grown enough to purchase its own building at the corner of Hanover Street and Railroad Avenue for $2400. It was to serve as their Grange Hall for the next 34 years. Soon thereafter, the Grange members embarked on a new project that was to have far reaching consequences, namely the “Grange Fair”.

It seems a series of debates occurred over who could grow the best vegetables. One of the members, Chester Hyatt suggested holding a fair to show off his fine potato crop. He suggested that no other Grange members could match it. The farmers held their first Grange Fair on October 19, 1923.  The fair’s early displays of produce, baking and flowers were auctioned off after being judged. It soon became  the fair’s traditional finale.

As the popularity of the fair grew, the crowds became too large for the small Grange Hall. Starting in 1946, the fair was moved to the then “Yorktown School”, (now the Community and Cultural Center) in the middle of Yorktown Heights. Finally, in 1954 the Yorktown Grange purchased 14 acres of land on Moseman Rd. There they built a new Grange Hall and the 1954 Yorktown Grange Fair was held on its grounds for the first time