- City:
- Chico, CA
- Site Type:
- Parks and Recreation, Fairgrounds
- New Deal Agencies:
- Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA)
- Quality of Information:
- Moderate
- Marked:
- No
- Site Survival:
- Unknown
Description
The Works Progress Administration ( WPA) built several of the features in the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds: a grandstand, two sides of the Education building, and a barn for all sorts of stock animals.
The Silver Dollar Fairgrounds is home to the Third District Agricultural Association and has a fair every Memorial Day week. Butte county fairs go back to the mid-19th century, off and on, and came to be sponsored by the Third District Agricultural Association after it was formed in 1935.
The fairgrounds hosts other events throughout the year, particularly open car races on the Silver Dollar Speedway. The Gold Cup race goes back to 1951. It seems that the track was originally built in the 1930s for horse racing.
It is uncertain if any of the WPA structures remain: the barn burned in the 1940s and the grandstand was replaced in 1960. An education building is still shown on the website of the Silver Dollar Fair (though we did not located it in a visit in 2019).
Source notes
Oroville Mercury-Register. Article date needed.
https://silverdollarfair.org/About_Us/index.html
https://www.silverdollarfair.org/p/getinvolved
Ken Smith, "Butte County gets a New Deal," Chico News & Review, May 31, 2012. https://www.newsreview.com/chico/content?oid=6160692
Site originally submitted by Shaina Potts on June 30, 2009.
Additional contributions by Richard A Walker.
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