DeKalb County Fair

The fair belongs to a town that was planned to prosper. Alexandria was established in 1820 by Daniel Alexander, a migrant from Maryland, and it soon had a number of flourishing businesses and good schools. Its fair grandstand is the oldest in Tennessee and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Also on the Register in Alexandria is Seay Chapel United Methodist Church, a former African American church building that is now a community center. Fair and chapel together keep the town's nineteenth-century life visible.

What the plaque says

DeKalb County Fair North 1/2 mile, the first fair was held October 15-17, 1856, on the south bank of Hickman Creek. The buildings were destroyed by Federal troops in 1863 and rebuilt across the creek 9 years later. There, despite fire and flood, the fair has been held annually since 1872. Still a popular event, it is known affectionately as the "Grandpa Fair of the South."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Burgess Falls State Park — 25 mi
  A day-use park on the Falling Water River, where a short trail passes three smaller falls on its way to a drop of more than 130 feet into a limestone gorge.
• Stones River National Battlefield — 26 mi
  The Murfreesboro battlefield of December 1862, with a national cemetery built by Black soldiers, a Trail of Tears route and the story of the freedmen's settlement called Cemetery.
• Wynnewood State Historic Site — 27 mi
  A National Historic Landmark log inn at the Bledsoe's Lick springs, beside a Mississippian mound center and tied to the domestic slave trade.
• Rock Island State Park — 29 mi
  A park where the Collins, Rocky and Caney Fork rivers meet at the head of Center Hill Lake, with a gorge of waterfalls below a 1917 dam and the remains of a cotton-mill town.

More markers nearby

• Wheeler School — 0.3 mi
• Morgan's Ohio Raid June 11, 1863 — 0.9 mi
• Wilson Lawrence Waters — 5.4 mi
• Adam Dale — 6.0 mi