The first farmers had to wrest cropland from the forests that covered Butler County using little more than primitive implements and their own strength.

It was called a “Herculean task” by James A. Mckee, the author of “The 20th Century History of Butler and Butler County and Representative Citizens” published in 1909.

McKee wrote the pioneering farmers had to fell trees and burn piles of timber to clear fields. Once done they had to sow crops using plows and harrows “often made of wood before iron could be obtained from Pittsburgh.”

Weeding was done with hand hoes, sickles were used to harvest wheat and rye. Scythes were used to cut down grass.

The first crop planted was buckwheat, which became a staple crop in the county.

According to McKee buckwheat served two purposes. “It tamed the rank, virgin soil after the timber had been removed and prepared it for the raising of more pretentious grains and served as an excellent article of food.”

After planting crops, the farmers and their families then had to labor to harvest them.

“From the first of July to the first of September from sunrise to sunset,” wrote McKee whole families assisted in putting up crops. Come winter, threshing grain was done with hand flails, or horses were used to tramp grain on a threshing floor to separate the grain from the chaff. The early farmers, McKee wrote, “were known for their strength and giant physique.”

Mowing machines and reapers began to appear in the county as early as 1850 but they were not in common use, according to McKee “because they could not be operated successfully in fields full of stumps.”

But by the last quarter of the 19th century, the stumps had disappeared and the self-binder, two-horse hay rake and the steam-powered corn husker began to be used to bring in the crops.

It’s little wonder that farmers quickly began to band together to form societies to pool their knowledge of successful farming techniques.

Mckee wrote “The farmers of Butler County adopted progressive and modern methods at an early date and the use of machinery became general as the conditions of the county would permit. Agricultural societies for the improvement of lifestock, farmers institutes and agricultural exhibitions were organized at an early day and exhibits of farm implements at county fairs were made as early as 1850.”

McKee wrote the first society for the promotion of agriculture, the Butler County Agricultural and Domestic Manufacturing Society, was formed in Butler on April 17, 1830. It had William Ayres as its first president and attracted 100 subscribers.

By 1849, the North Butler Agricultural Club became its successor. Three years, later the Butler County Agricultural Society was formed, but McKee noted it accomplished little, but did give rise to the more successful Butler County Agricultural and Horticultural Society.

Other agricultural societies included the Semiconan Agricultural Society that formed in 1852. It staged a fair on Oct. 19, 1852 at Schoolhouse No. 1, second fair in 1853, and a third and final fair in 1853 in Prospect before in merged with a broader agricultural organization.

The Emlenton Agricultural Society held a successful fair in Emlenton in 1858 but McKee wrote “interest in the project subsided and the organization disbanded.”

The Butler County Colonization Society was formed by ministers in 1860 for the purpose of raising $5,000 to promote the colonization of free Negroes into Pennsylvania because, according to McKee’s history, such a moved “it was believed would benefit the agricultural interests of the state, as well as the Negroes.”

The Patrons of Husbandry was formed in the 1870s which led to the creation for farmers’ granges throughout the county. At the end of the 19th century, several of the granges were still in existence.

The Butler County Farmers Club was organized in 1869 but in the next year merged with the Farmers Institute.

The Connoquenessing Valley Agriculture Association formed in 1874 and staged one fair that year before the association dissolved.

The 1895 “History of Butler County” published by R.C. Brown & Co. noted the Butler County Agricultural and Horticultural Society was founded on March 20, 1853, and staged its first fair on Oct. 13, 1853, in North Washington. A second fair was in North Washington in September 1854. In 1855 and 1856 the society staged fairs in other boroughs before returning to North Washington in 1857. But by then, the history recorded, the society faded as a society at the county seat in Butler “won the battle for precedence.”

That society, the Butler Agricultural and Stock Association was formed in Butler in 1857 to spearhead fair activities.

According to the Big Butler Fair’s own history, in 1857 a fair was held on a site near what would become the Pullman-Standard plant. The fair prospered until the event went into hiatus between 1861 and 1864 because of the Civil War.

Eleven years later, the Butler Driving and Fair Association took over running the fair with G. J. Cross stepping in as president. To further the development of the Butler Fair, a 33-acre plot was leased and a half-mile racetrack was built, along what is now Hansen Avenue. In the tradition of county fairs, the association presented exhibitions of livestock and farm products, as well as harness racing featuring well-known drivers and locally owned horses.

The fair purchased additional land in 1888.

Now under the name of the Butler Agricultural Association, the fair was a successful annual event through 1902. That same year, the Standard Steel Car Co. purchased the fair property, building a plant to manufacture steel railroad cars.

With the sale of the land to the Standard Steel Car Co., the Butler Agricultural Association dissolved.

But on Aug. 4, 1903, sixteen businessmen and horsemen, according to McKee, met at the Lyndora Hotel to form the Butler Driving Park and Fair Association. The group purchased 60 acres on a hill west of Butler between New Castle and Whitestown roads and began construction of a new fairgrounds complete with cattle sheds, a midway and a racetrack and grandstand.

Over the years, Fair Week in Butler County grew to the most colorful annual event in the district despite two world wars and a depression.

In 1928, R. J. Ferguson became the president of the fair, and under his leadership the discouraging years of the Great Depression were weathered by the association.

World War II continued the fair's difficulties, but following this uncertain era, the Association converted into a nonprofit, with A. J. Richards, the son-in-law of Ferguson, as president. By this time, however, the expansion of the Butler area had caught up with the fair.

In 1956, the fair’s property was selected by school authorities as the site for a new high school. After considerable confusion, the Butler Fair was reestablished in a new setting on Route 422, eight miles west of Butler and adjacent to Prospect.

Roads were laid out, graded and paved. Buildings were moved from the old location. New, permanent buildings were erected, a new racetrack was constructed and a new fairgrounds came into existence.

The Big Butler Fair, the fair history noted, has continued to this day in the old tradition and remains a link to the county’s agricultural past.