Lee County's Historical Fair

[Stephanie Bivins]

The Lee County Historical Fair takes place once a year in Loachapoka, which is right across the street from the Syrup Soppin’ festival.

The Historical Fair has been going on for 38 years. The purpose of the fair is to bring together the community for a Saturday of fun, food and history, while raising money.

All profits earned from the fundraising event go to support the museum, which is free to visit.

Ashley Eden, whose grandfather owned the Lee County Museum, volunteers her time each year in the cookhouse. Eden is a senior in elementary education at Auburn University. She has worked the past 12 years at the event.

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“My earliest memory of working in the cookhouse would have to be making my first sweet potato fritters. They were hot and delicious,” Eden said.

The sweet potato fritters are fried sweet potato biscuits in the shape of diamonds that have been dipped in cinnamon and sugar. Sweet potato biscuits, hot chocolate, homemade sweet tea, lemonade and barbecue sandwiches are other items that can be purchased at the cookhouse.

To make the sweet potato biscuits and fritters, 120 pounds of sweet potatoes are required. These must first be washed, peeled and mashed up. The women begin baking the sweet potato biscuits at 1 a.m.

Eden arrived at 6 a.m. to help get everything set up and finish baking. The Historical Fair did not open until 7 a.m. When it did, the biscuits and sweet potato fritters went fast.

This year, Eden found sponsors to donate gift cards to their stores so she could buy things like sweet potatoes, buttermilk and flour. Other contributors helped by donating cash.

Altogether she raised around $800 for the Lee County Museum’s Historical Fair. To thank the contributors, Eden created a sign to advertise for them. It was displayed outside of the cookhouse for all of the customers to see.

“We have thousands upon thousands of visitors who come each year, and it’s just wonderful that they come back to support us,” Eden said.

Customers are not the only ones who keep coming back. Many volunteers continue to show their support.

“A lot of the same people work in the cookhouse every year. Most of the time, the volunteers help pay for some of the stuff we need,” Eden said.

The museum is open to visitors during the Historical Fair. There they can see women making quilts and look at arrowheads from the Loachapoka area. Many of these arrowheads were found by Eden’s grandfather, Prince Webster.

Much more can be seen at the museum. It is rich in history and full of information to educate people of all ages.

“When fourth graders are learning about Alabama history, their teachers bring them to the Lee County Museum to teach them about their county’s history at the same time,” Eden said.

This year it was especially important to carry on the tradition of helping with the Historical Fair because Eden’s grandfather passed away. Just in Eden’s family, there are eight to 10 people that help make the event a huge success. This includes her uncle, aunt, cousin and grandmother.

“Preserving history is what my grandfather really wanted. That’s one of the main reasons that we take part in the Historical Fair,” Eden said. “The museum was a really big part of his life.”