Brazoria County Fair

From Brazoria County Fair Website:

OCTOBER 12 - 20, 2018

History of the "modern" Brazoria County Fair begins in 1938, when Angleton Jaycees took over operation of several of the annual events. Although no fair organization officially existed that year, Jack Phillips of West Columbia recalls that "a little exhibition of livestock was heldand the ladies showed their jams and jellies" on the courthouse lot. Phillips, who has missed only one Brazoria County Fair since 1938 (until his death in ) he was attending the Olympics in Mexico City during the 1968 fair served as president of the fair in 1957, 1967, and 1968.

After formation of the Brazoria County Fat Stock and Fair Association, the group bought a 20-acre fig orchard south of Angleton for use as fairgrounds. By 1947, other 30-acres had been added to the site, and throughout the years, more land has been bought and paid out as it became available.



The fair was canceled for three years during World War II, and the property was leased to the U.S. government as the site for a U.S. Signal Corps radar unit. After a little more than a year, however, the government decided to utilize the facilities as a prisoner of war camp. A high fence topped with rows of barbed wire was placed around the property, with guard towers built at the corners. German war prisoners were moved to the site. At one time, 200 of Rommel's crack North African Troops were among the prisoners housed there. Those who wanted to work for small wages, helped area farmers in cotton or rice harvesting and other chores, several of these former prisoners have visited Angleton in recent years, bringing their families to see where they were incarcerated and where they waded through muddy rice fields or stooped for hours to pick cotton.