Entertainment

How were people entertained?

In 1900 traveling shows were extremely popular. The traveling shows would come to Fairland and reside in the Fairland Hotel, which was owned by Thomas B. Maze, nicknamed Daddy. Bussiness was booming in Fairland when shows came. The entire hotel was full, and later on there had to be a balcony added on just so everyone could come in and enjoy. To heat the building there were two big stoves.Since the stoves were big, but not big enough, some people would sit to close and get extremely hot, and some wouldn't even be able to feel the heat because of sitting so far away. Most of the plays were melodrama type (Gray 19). The audiences were captivated by the actors and would cheer and boo for the hero and the villian. One of the most remorable plays was "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The actors and actress were honored to act in the plays. Activies that ladies participated in was the Ladies Concert Band of Fairland. The director of the badn was Fredrick W. Rasp of Sugar Creek Township. For these ladies to get instruments they had to raise money. They raised money by holding the Ice-Cream Festival. The ladies would ride around horse and buggy trying to collect extra milk, eggs and cream to make the ice-cream. It would take all day to make the ice-cream and later that night when everyones chores were done they were served the ice-cream that was made, and also cake. They had a beautiful seeting with Japanese laterns above the tables. After a lot of hard practice, the girls made their outfits, and their debut at the Eighth Grade Commencement of the fourteen townships in the county. " A thousand people attended the Shelby Township commencement under the big tent at Wilson Wednesday night. a class composed of seven bright girls and one intelligetn thogh lonesome boy, highly entertained the audience."(Gray 20).
A new and interesting game introduced was a game called auto polo. This game consisted of two players, a Model T Ford that was stripped down to running gears, a ball the size of a football and a mallet. The length of the course was 350ft long. Two eight and a half stakes were placed at either end of the course and the ball was placed in the middle. Each car resided between its two stakes and when the referee gave the signal each car was to rush to the center to try to prevent the other from getting the ball in between his two stakes. One of the two players was the driver and the other was the man with the mallet. For almost the entire game the car would be kept in reverse. The main rule was you had to be on your machine when you hit the ball. This game was very popluar throughout the country for 10 to 15 years. To see how entertainment now and then has changed is amazing. Now we have televison and computers, rather than just having a band and a very interesting game. Entertainment has change significantly throughout the years.