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The San Fernando Valley Fair used to be a pretty big community affair — with horse racing, rodeo events, and barns full of sheep and rabbits raised by 4-H kids in their backyards — that kept alive the Valley's equestrian and agricultural tradition. In recent decades, though, the event faded away and wasn't even held within the San Fernando Valley, but in the Santa Clarita Valley — and last year not even there. Now, a scaled-down Valley Fair will be revived in June at Birmingham Community Charter School in Lake Balboa, which I guess is the post-suburbs identity for what used to be Birmingham High School in Encino Van Nuys. "We say, proudly and loudly: Welcome back," the Daily News writes today.
Long saga: The fair's long slow demise began when the state Legislature in the late 1950s added the fairgrounds, Devonshire Downs, to the new campus of what became Cal State Northridge. The school never really needed the land, which now houses the headquarters and factory of a private company, Medtronic Diabetes.
Add Devonshire Downs: More famously, the Downs was the location for the three-day Newport '69 rock festival.