Lenawee County Fairgrounds

The Agricultural Society of Lenawee County organized and held its first fair in 1839, making it one of Michigan’s oldest county fairs. The fair originally took place in downtown Adrian between River Street and the River Raisin. In 1879 the grandstand collapsed in the county’s worst disaster to that date. The event sent the fair into bankruptcy, but the agricultural society persevered. In 1884 it purchased this site. The oldest building on the grounds is the 1899 octagon Grange Building. A 1905 Adrian Daily Telegram claimed “No other county in the world has as many granges as Lenawee County.” The 4-H Building, the Women’s Congress Building, and the grandstand are among the fairground’s other early structures.