Blue skies and sunshine prevailed yesterday and crowds returned to downtown Riverhead for the 46th Annual Riverhead Country Fair.
After a near-washout last year and cancellation in 2020, the fair this year drew fewer vendors than usual, but visitors returned in force to the popular fall event, hosted by Riverhead Townscape since 1976.
Most of this year’s 150 vendors were concentrated along Main Street this year, as organizers prepare for the transformation of much of the riverfront parking lot according to plans for a town square and public spaces featuring a playground, an amphitheater and a boathouse.
The town square space, where Riverhead Town last year demolished two buildings it purchased to make way for the town square, was open, connecting East Main Street to the Peconic River.
Carnival rides and games, a couple dozen vendors, the town showmobile — where the fair’s opening ceremony was held and the band Southbound performed — and a beer garden were set up in the riverfront parking lot. Some visitors came by boat, taking advantage of the town’s docking facilities.
Agricultural, homemaking and needlecraft contest entries were displayed on the grounds of East End Arts and in the carriage house there, along with exhibitors from the Long Island Antique Power Association, the Eastern Long Island Basketweaving Guild, and a petting zoo.
The Riverhead Country Fair’s roots go back much further than 1976, when it was resurrected by Riverhead Townscape. The Suffolk County Fair, hosted by the Riverhead Agricultural Society, goes back to the 1840s, when it was been held on property that came to be known as the fair grounds, just north of Pulaski Street. It was held there every year until the Great Depression.
The fairgrounds site was acquired by the Riverhead Central School District during the Depression. With the assistance of the federal Works Progress Administration, the district built a new high school on Pulaski Street. The building now houses the district’s intermediate school.
After the Depression, the fair was held “only erratically” until a group of residents decided to bring it back in 1976, the longtime coordinator of the fair, Jim Lull, told RiverheadLOCAL in a 2010 interview.
Vendors this year were offering everything from sports memorabilia, clothing, jewelry, hats and sunglasses, to woodcrafts, jams and candles. Visitors lined up at food trucks to buy street fair staples such as funnel cake, roasted corn, gyros and heroes. They also stopped in to sample the offerings of downtown Riverhead’s many eateries, pubs and breweries.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti
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