MARIETTA - Dean Becker, 79, of Whipple, remembers attending the Washington County Fair with his parents, Gilbert and Nora Becker, when he was a boy.

He's seldom missed a fair since.

"My dad was a great one for horse pulls. At that time this was a great interest of his," Becker said. "By the time I was a teenager I had cattle to show with the FFA (formerly the Future Farmers of America)."

A fair board member 36 years, Becker grew up with the fair.

For thousands of people and hundreds of families in the region, the Washington County Fair is an end-of-summer ritual. This year the fair opens Saturday and runs four days through Sept. 8.

Covering more than 100 acres at the north edge of Marietta, the fairgrounds have evolved into a year-round facility, home to numerous baseball fields, Civitan Park and buildings that shelter everything from January boat and trailer shows to championship dog shows in the spring.

The fair's roots are in the Washington County Agricultural and Mechanical Association, which was established in 1819. The more modern fair was born June 24, 1846, when the association was reorganized under an act of the Ohio General Assembly.

Come Labor Day Weekend, the fairgrounds come alive.

"Tractor pulling came in about the 1950s or so, along with tractor showing," Becker said. "I got interested in showing tractors. Now I spend a good bit of my time in the tractor tent."

Becker enjoys seeing old friends and chatting at the fair.

"We talk old memories over," he said. "You got to have some fair food, too, a hamburger and french fries and a little bit of ice cream tastes real good."

Harry Cogswell, 83, of Marietta, who served as secretary and fair manager for 19 years, said what makes the Washington County Fair special is diversity.

"You've got everything - flowers, crafts, livestock, a petting zoo and small animals, as well as food and rides," he said. "The fair board does an excellent job, and there isn't much money to do it."

It costs about $200,000 each year to support the fair, according to Steve Tornes, fair board president.

"There is no doubt that our costs increase every year," Tornes said. "Ads, entertainment, tractor pulls, rodeos, all cost money. A country music show costs a minimum of $13,000 to $15,000."

This year, the fair board is doing something different - the Great Lakes Timber Show, which includes log rolling, pole climbing and such. The cost: $5,500. There will also be an auto thrill show at the grandstands.

"It used to be the county commissioners routinely gave us $25,000 a year for debt retirement, and that covered a lot of costs," Tornes said. "Now we get $2,500 from the county."

All 21 fairgrounds board directors are volunteers. Each year seven new directors are elected and it isn't too late to run, he said

The fairgrounds has one of the best race tracks in the state, Tornes said, along with a new cow barn (which is a multipurpose building the rest of the year) and new grandstands.

Cogswell is familiar with other fairs in the state because he was a member of the Ohio Fair Managers Association for years.

A longtime champion of the local fair, Cogswell said he started out with small 4-H projects and graduated to showing chickens and dairy cattle.

"In 1941, the First National Bank here took six or seven of us to the Ohio State Fair," he said. "We formed the Washington County Better Calves Club and that seemed to begin some of the early good things at the fair. It created a lot of interest."

Cogswell believes the county fair is becoming more popular, especially as the economy slumps.

"People are getting back to basics, back to nature," Cogswell said. "We have an outstanding state fair and it carries down to the counties."

Cogswell does not believe the three fairs in Washington County should ever be combined into one.

Becker said he makes sure to attend all three fairs in Washington County. Barlow and Waterford are community fairs, like homecomings, he said.

"We need all three," Becker said. "Nobody in the community would want one fair only. It would be a mistake."

Josephine Hune of Marietta has been an exhibitor and judge at the Washington County Fair and makes sure she is there every year.

"I go for the flowers," she said. "The flower show used to be, and still is, the best in the state. There used to be more garden clubs involved than today."

Hune, who has judged flower shows at fairs all over the state, said today's Washington County Fair is very similar to the way it used to be, but with the addition of several new buildings and the grandstands.

With the honors of being the oldest community fair in the state and the most-attended event of the year in western Washington County, the Barlow Fair is irreplaceable, say residents of the communities that surround the Barlow Fairgrounds.

"It's a great community get-together," said Ruby Hall, of Layman, who still attends the fair in her 80s. "People come back home for it every year. You can see people from all parts of the country here for our fair."

In its 138th year, the fair has a different focus than the other two Washington County fairs, said fair board member Neil Cassidy.

"Waterford has the hogs, the fair in Marietta is known for its small animals and steers, and we have our feeder calves," he said. "The feeder calf sale on Saturday brings in a lot of people."

Other highlights are the rides and the tractor pulls.

"Everybody, I mean everybody, goes to the tractor pull," said Hall.

That's also true of the parade that traditionally kicks off the fair. The parade lasts for hours and nearly everyone in the community seems to be in it or watching it, said Cassidy.

"It's just unreal," he said. "People are lined up all the way from downtown Vincent clear up (Ohio) 339 to the high school, in Barlow and onto the fairgrounds."

The fair allows all the area youth to show their animals and projects, said Cassidy.

There's a building for the FFA, another for 4-H members and a "Lad and Lassies" area where any children who don't belong to the organizations can show their handiwork.