Turkey legs, sausage on a stick, and the crack of black powder rifles return to Springfield this weekend as the Fair at New Boston opens for its Labor Day tradition at George Rogers Clark Park. Organizers have widened streets, relocated popular food vendors, and added new offerings from the fair's bison vendor for the 2026 run, which unfolds on the grounds of an early American frontier settlement at 926 S. Tecumseh Road.
The festival runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 5, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 6, rain or shine, according to the Springfield News-Sun. Kristopher Shultz, board president of the George Rogers Clark Heritage Association, told the paper the fair represents “the country's federal period” and said it is held “for the love of history and to teach people what they did not know.” Shultz also said the event stands apart because it presents that history directly to the public, calling it the third-oldest ongoing festival of its kind in the United States, per his own account to the paper.
Layout Changes and New Bites for 2026
This year's changes include widened streets throughout the grounds and a shuffled vendor arrangement designed to ease crowd flow, per the fair's organizers. The bison food vendor has added several new offerings to the menu alongside returning staples like turkey legs, sausage on a stick, and chicken and noodles. Attendees will also find three taverns and a coffee bar scattered across the fairgrounds, along with live battle recreations, oxen and other live animals, a coppersmith, and a surgeon demonstrating late 18th- and early 19th-century medicine.
The festival also adds a Native American village this year, and reenactors will display changing clothing styles from the late 18th and early 19th centuries throughout the weekend. Organizers say they research period history extensively to keep the presentation authentic, aiming to provide what they describe as an immersive staycation built around the festival's motto: “Honoring our past, inspiring our future.”
A Battlefield Turned Bicentennial Tradition
The fairgrounds occupy the historical site of New Boston, an early 19th-century frontier town surveyed in 1809 that lost the Clark County seat to Springfield by just two votes in 1818 before it was eventually abandoned and annexed, according to the Ohio Ghost Town Exploration Co. New Boston itself was surveyed directly over the former site of the Shawnee village of Peckuwe. That same ground makes up George Rogers Clark Park, site of the August 8, 1780 Battle of Peckuwe, which the National Trail Parks & Recreation District describes as the largest military engagement of the Revolutionary War fought west of the Allegheny Mountains, when Col. George Rogers Clark led Kentucky militia forces to drive Shawnee and British troops from the region.
The fair traces its own roots to that history. It was established in 1982 by local living history enthusiasts Dick and Donna Ward following a 1980 bicentennial reenactment of the Battle of Peckuwe held at the park, according to Hub Springfield. That original reenactment was organized under Project 80 in conjunction with the American Revolution Bicentennial Committee, and the one-time event grew into the annual festival that continues 44 years later.
Strict Jurying Keeps the Federal Period Intact
All food, crafts, period entertainment, clothing, and equipment presented at the fair must pass through a formal jury process verifying accuracy to Ohio's 1780–1810 Federal period, per Crazy Crow Trader. Jurors evaluate whether materials, recipes, and craftsmanship match early frontier standards before vendors are approved. The living history festival draws roughly 110 vendor and merchant plots, with reenactors and craftspeople traveling from across the United States and Canada, including some from as far as California, and many camp on site in period-accurate setups for the duration of the multi-day event, the outlet reports.
The Friday before Labor Day weekend, the fair also holds an annual Education Day built for hands-on early American history field trips, serving local elementary and middle school classes with interactive living history demonstrations, according to Hub Springfield. This year's opening ceremonies will honor America's 250th anniversary, tying the local event into the statewide America 250-Ohio initiative established under Ohio Revised Code § 149.309 to coordinate semiquincentennial celebrations across all 88 counties. That state commission, according to America 250-Ohio, was formally established on Ohio Statehood Day in March 2022.
Nearby Attractions and Ticket Details
Visitors curious about the site's deeper history can also stop at the Daniel Hertzler House Museum, an 1854 restored pre-Civil War home sitting on a hill inside the park grounds. The National Trail Parks & Recreation District notes that Hertzler was a prominent local mill owner and banker whose unsolved 1867 murder inside the house inspired long-standing local folklore. Across Tecumseh Road from the park, the Davidson Interpretive Center offers free year-round exhibits detailing the history of the Shawnee village of Peckuwe and the 1780 battle, serving as a trailhead for the park grounds, according to Visit Greater Springfield.
Gate admission runs $15 for adults 16 and older, $12 for military personnel, veterans, and first responders with identification, and $6 for youth ages 6 to 15, with children 5 and under admitted free. Two-day adult passes are available for $20, two-day youth passes for $9, and two-day passes for military, veterans, and first responders for $17. Organizers had also offered an advance pre-sale ticket program at the park's Gathering House through Aug. 30, cutting adult gate pricing to $12 and military and first-responder pricing to $9, per the George Rogers Clark Heritage Association, which presents the fair. Full details are available at grcha.org.
