The annual Riverside County Fair & National Date Festival comes to Indio Feb. 12-21, and the event offers family entertainment that’s steeped in history.
Now in its 64th year, the Fair is a high-profile ten-day event that features a series of headliner entertainers, monster truck shows, big air motorcycles, cooking shows, a livestock auction, over 200 exhibitors, and more … including dates …
The fair, which started in the early 1920s has grown into a mega event, complete with livestock auctions, food, a carnival and much more. According to a news release from the Fair and National Date Festival Press Office, the concept of this fair all began with dates and celebrates the end of the annual date harvest in the desert region, the major commercial date-producing area in the western hemisphere.
Dates were an unknown commodity in the desert until 1903 when date palms were transplanted there from Algeria, event officials said in the news release. Eventually, enough acreage was planted to make dates a major crop for the area. Date groves in the Coachella Valley were such a novelty that they became a tourist attraction.
With the popularity of the date gardens, the idea was planted for the first Date Festival in 1921 to be held in Indio’s city park. A second event was held the following year, but enthusiasm drifted off and the annual Date Festival died, event officials said.
via www.swrnn.com
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