The North Carolina State Fair has been running since 1853, and close to a million people still come through the gates every October. There are plenty of state fairs across the country with a midway and livestock attached. This one is different. Yes, the rides and fried food are there, but the heart of it is a set of traditions North Carolina has practiced for generations. Here is what we think you should know.

Heritage Circle and the Tobacco Barn

If you see one thing at this fair, make it Heritage Circle. There is a working tobacco barn on the grounds, and on the first Friday of the fair, volunteers fill it. Leaves get strung onto sticks by hand and hung on the beams the way it was done on farms across this state for generations. A wood fire then cures them for seven days while fairgoers watch the leaves turn gold.

Anyone can help. Show up that morning and someone will hand you a stick.

That afternoon, teams of three compete in the tobacco stringing contest for the state championship. The cured leaf comes back out on the closing days for a mock auction, chant and all.

Also in Heritage Circle: a working grist mill with free hushpuppy samples, a general store, and ice cream churned by a hit-and-miss engine.

The Village of Yesteryear

In the early 1950s the fair’s manager walked into a mountain extension office, found an agent named Mary Cornwell, and told her she would be bringing craftsmen down to Raleigh in October.

Seventy-five years later the Village of Yesteryear is still going. More than 75 potters, weavers, blacksmiths, decoy carvers, and glass artists work in front of you and sell what they make, and children and great-grandchildren of the original crafters now run booths.

Best souvenir shopping at the fair.

The Rest Worth Planning Around

• The Folk Festival. A four-day competition in traditional North Carolina music and dance, running since 1948. Old-time, bluegrass, clogging, square dancing. Free with admission.
• The competition halls. Twenty-two categories, from beeswax to coloring book pages. Giant pumpkins at the Agri Supply Expo Center, quilts and cake decorating in the Commercial Building.
• Dorton Arena. Built in 1952 with the first column-free roof of its kind anywhere. Now home to the Got to Be NC pavilion.
• The livestock barns. Free, open all day, full of kids who spent a year raising an animal. The Sale of Champions regularly clears $200,000, all of it going to the young exhibitors.
  
  

The Food and Drink

Two traditions run side by side. Al’s has been hand-cutting french fries here since the 1950s. Add roasted corn, candy apples, hushpuppies, funnel cake, and cold milk from the Kerr Scott Building that longtime fairgoers swear is the best thing on the grounds.

Then there is the new list. Vendors debut items every year and arguing about them is its own tradition. Recent years brought pickle-flavored fries, barbecue doughnuts, and fried frozen watermelon. Get one thing off each list.

Two more stops for the grown-ups. The N.C. Public House in the Dorton Arena south lobby pours craft beer, wine, and cider from a state with more than 350 breweries and 185 wineries, run in partnership with the N.C. Craft Brewers Guild. Cheerwine covers anyone not drinking.

The N.C. Stillhouse sits over in Heritage Circle, with four member distilleries rotating through every single day of the run. It has a wraparound porch facing the pond where the fireworks go off after dark, which makes it the best seat at the fair.

Ride the State Fair Flyer chairlift at dusk, then go claim a spot on that porch.

The Practical Stuff

• Parking is free on fair property, at Carter-Finley, and at the Lenovo Center, plus two off-site park-and-ride lots with shuttles. Skip the informal lots neighbors set up.
• Or skip the drive. GoRaleigh runs an express shuttle to Gate 1, and Amtrak sets up a temporary station at the fairgrounds. 
• Go on a weekday, and go early. Both Saturdays are the heaviest by a wide margin. Ride first while lines are short, then hit the exhibit halls, which never have any.
• Buy admission online ahead for the discount, and bring a clear bag for the fast security line.
  
  

The Perfect Place to Park the Rig

The state fairgrounds campground closes for all of October, so you need a park that stays open. Raleigh Oaks is in Four Oaks, off I-95 at exit 90, about 45 minutes southeast of the fairgrounds. We hold 150 level pull-throughs up to 75 feet with full hookups, plus cottages. You can check out all the great Amenities here.