San Jose family has history of supporting county fair

The Santa Clara County Fairgrounds Heritage Foundation (FHF) is developing a permanent fairgrounds history museum in the 1949 State House Replica located on the fairgrounds property.

The State House Replica was built to commemorate the centennial celebration of San Jose as the state capitol. The FHF also hopes to raise funds to restore the building to be an accurate copy of the 1849 California State House.

The FHF hopes to house a year-round display of fairgrounds history plus storage for the collection and meeting space in the State House Replica. The foundation is in the beginning stages of implementing museum software to scan and document each item in a searchable database.

“The Santa Clara County Fair is vitally important to the Silicon Valley,” said Salene Duarte, interim co-executive director and fair manager. “We must all understand the heart of a county fair is agriculture, and without agriculture, we would all be naked and hungry.”

The fair has often served as a museum for San Jose and Santa Clara County. Elementary schools regularly scheduled field trips so young residents could learn about local history.

“The fair is still a gathering place for family and friends to see the canned fruit, the quilts and photography, the baby piglets that the city kids haven’t ever seen before,” said Marcella Gulmon, longtime San Jose resident and the fairgrounds heritage curator. “[Children] learn that chocolate milk does not come from a brown cow.”

The Gulmon family has been instrumental in amassing the fair’s historical collection. In addition to serving on the foundation board, Gulmon has been dubbed the “fairground historian.”

“All you need to do is call Marcella,” Duarte said. “She either knows the answer or can find the individual who can give you that answer.”

Gulmon’s research into the history of the fair and fairgrounds includes seeking out historical memorabilia and artifacts online, speaking with longtime fair attendees and supporters, and researching historical archives.

“Over the last four years, Marcella has become a fixture here at the fairgrounds,” said Duarte. “She has been meeting new individuals all the time and collecting as much data as possible about all things related to the fairgrounds.”

Gulmon’s collection is expanding to include any event that happened at the fairgrounds, such as cultural events, concerts, scouting events, horse and car racing, and wedding receptions.

“One of the things that brings joy to me, and to all of those that are helping to collect, preserve and document our fairgrounds history,” said Gulmon, “is hearing someone say, ‘That’s my grandma! I’ve not seen photos of her at that age, and I never knew she canned peaches.’”

Gulmon has always enjoyed the Santa Clara County Fair.

“My parents instilled in me the love of the fair from an early age,” she said. “They were both educators at Campbell High School. Part of their job was to encourage their students to enter their projects into the competitive entries at the annual fair. We came as a family every year.”

Gulmon’s family walked through all the exhibits to see the students’ projects. She has fond memories of seeing the livestock, eating strawberry shortcake and Italian sausage, walking through the commercial exhibits and riding carnival rides.

Gulmon’s daughter joined 4-H in 2008, and soon the Gulmon family was back to actively participating at the fair. In 2019, Gulmon attended a planning meeting for the 75th annual fair.

“I raised my hand to help set up a fair heritage exhibit,” she said. “What I didn’t know was that the only item that the fairgrounds had was a partially filled banker’s box of old black and white photos labeled with only the year.”

And for Gulmon, the rest is history.

“The realization that there were no other local museums or collections that had a comprehensive 80-plus years of fairgrounds history has motivated me to continue this history work,” she said. “In 2020, I joined the Fairgrounds Heritage Foundation board.”

The foundation was created in 2015 to preserve, promote and develop the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds.

In 2023, the nonprofit Fair Management Corporation agreed that the heritage collection should be moved to the annex building on the fairgrounds property.

A small portion of the historical collection was displayed at the 80th annual fair in over 60 vintage display cases, Gulmon said.