{"nrhp_refnum":"00000347","name":"Hemlock Fairground","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"East Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Hemlock","county":"Livingston County","state":"NY","lat":42.79433755350007,"lon":-77.61079146171696,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2000-04-06","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Agriculture","Entertainment/Recreation"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 35.6-acre county fairground district on East Avenue in Hemlock, Livingston County, New York, with a half-mile racetrack, a grandstand dating to 1870 and exhibition buildings from the 1870s and 1920s.","why_significant":"The fairground is significant under Criterion A for its role in agriculture and in entertainment and recreation. It shows how agricultural fairs spread new farming methods and offered harness racing and other amusements from the late nineteenth century into the mid-twentieth century. It has kept its historic use and its core fair buildings.","narrative":"Hemlock Fairground is a 35.6-acre district on level bottomland at the north end of a valley, about a mile from Hemlock Lake in Livingston County, New York. Its centerpiece is a half-mile oval racetrack laid out in 1870, beside a nine-bay timber-frame grandstand of the same year that has box stalls beneath its seating. Exhibition buildings stand in a cluster to the east, including the cross-planned 4-H Building of 1877, a Domestic/Exhibit Hall of 1920 and a Grange Hall from about the 1920s. Livestock barns, food stands and other later buildings are classed as noncontributing. The fairground is listed for its link to agriculture and to entertainment and recreation. Agricultural societies used fairs to spread information about new equipment and farming methods, and harness racing was a major attraction. The site still hosts an annual fair in July, the same use it has had historically.","period_of_significance":"1876-1949","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Late Victorian; Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"The fairground is still used for its historic purpose, mainly the annual Hemlock Little World's Fair in July, along with horse races and other events.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:50.710904-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/00000347.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00000347/ebbc58e068-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00000347/ebbc58e068-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 4.0","author":"DanielPenfield","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HemlockFair2023GrandstandDuringHarnessRacingWarmup.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">DanielPenfield</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HemlockFair2023GrandstandDuringHarnessRacingWarmup.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75318655","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemlock_Fairground","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5712267"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/livingston-county/hemlock-fairground-00000347/"}