Maryland State Fair

About Maryland State Fair

The Maryland State Fair is the annual state fair for the state of Maryland. It is held at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium. As of 2006, the fair is an 11-day event customarily beginning in late August and ending around Labor Day.

The first fair was held in 1878 and was known as the Lutherville Fair. The following year, 1879, the fair was moved to its current location in Timonium and was held from September 9 through September 12. In 1906, the Lutherville Fair merged with the Pimlico Fair and became known as the Maryland State Fair. The fair was suspended from 1943 through 1945 during World War II. In 1999, the fair grew to its current length of 11 days.

In 1878, after several unsuccessful attempts to establish an on-going fair at other locations around Baltimore, a group of Maryland businessmen operated a successful fair on a four-acre site in Lutherville, MD. Despite its success, the Lutherville Fair was short lived because an extension of the Northern Central Railway was constructed in the middle of the fairgrounds.