Tag: carolina classic fair

New in the collection: Dixie Fire Insurance blotter

Dixie Fire Insurance, chartered in 1906, is long lost into a series of industry mergers, but its handsome headquarters — at five stories, once Guilford County’s tallest skyscraper — remains as the nominally truncated Dixie Building.

Now that Winston-Salem has renamed the Dixie Classic Fair the Carolina Classic Fair and Winn-Dixie has beaten a retreat from the state, the Dixie Building may be the Triad’s most prominent bearer of the increasingly-contentious name.

Also from Dixie Fire Insurance’s store of desk accessories: this eye-catching mirror/paperweight from World War I.

New in the collection: Tobacco Fair badge

Gold medal with the words "Souvenir" and "Tobacco Fair"

“The first Forsyth County fair, in the 1880s, was dedicated to wheat, at the time the most valuable product, along with fruits and berries, grown in the area. But in 1897, the tobacco interests put on a huge ‘Industrial and Tobacco Fair’ which eclipsed all former efforts. The Twin City Sentinel published a special commemorative edition. All of the events were held in the tobacco warehouses.”

— From the colorful and thorough “Tobacco warehouses…T.J. Brown lights the fire…” by the North Carolina Collection, Forsyth County Public Library

The Tobacco Fair turned into the Dixie Classic in 1956 and then into the Carolina Classic in 2019.