"The fourth annual fair and races opened today under a cloudless sky," the Fort Worth reporter noted in the newspaper's September 13, 1892 edition, and he went on to call the shooting tournament, ballgame and races "a grand success."
Barber's Riddle was the fastest trotting horse and Black Daisy won the half-mile dash.
Bonham defeated Denison 7-2 in the men's league baseball game, much to the delight of the hometown crowd.
J.W. Russell won the first event in the shooting tournament over competitors like J.C. Saunders and John Arledge.
D. Purdy exhibited a five-and-a-half month old English Shire colt that weighed 780 pounds and stood 13 1/2 hands high, as well as a Cleveland Bay colt.
According to Wikipedia, the Shire is a British breed of draught horse. It is a tall breed, and Shires have at various times held world records both for the largest horse and for the tallest horse. Cleveland Bay horses originated in England during the 17th century.
W.D. Estes had seven head of Jersey Red and Poland China hogs that had a combined weight of 3,900 pounds.
Jim Cobb of Dodd's exhibited a two-year-old Holstein cow that was giving eight gallons of milk a day, but unfortunately Mr. Cobb's 2,000-pound, two-year-old Holstein bull died September 12 "from some unknown cause," according to the article.
There has been a resurgence of interest in the properties of local bois d'arc wood and bois d'arc was certainly featured in the 1892 Fannin County Fair.
According to the Fort Worth Gazette, V.A. Ewing was exhibiting a bois d'arc wagon, built entirely in Bonham and "finished in natural wood."
The article went on to say this wagon "will be on exhibition at Dallas, and from there will go to the World's Fair."
And this wasn't the only bois d'arc exhibit at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.
According to the Spellman Museum of Forney History, James A. Bolding’s Forney factory made bois d’arc walking sticks to sell at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.
The Spellman Museum website states, "In the 1880s Forney shipped bois d’arc to Dallas to build its downtown streets. In downtown Forney, portions of the sidewalks along Bois d’Arc and Center streets were paved with bois d’arc, too. William Cisel, known as "Bois d’Arc Bill", was Forney’s largest dealer.
The 1893 World's Fair certainly had its share of celebrities. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell escorted Helen Keller, along with her mentor Anne Sullivan, to the fair that summer.
Nikola Tesla showed up at the fair for a week in August to attend the International Electrical Congress and thrilled onlookers with a series of demonstrations of his wireless lighting system staged in a darkened room. Tesla often used a nearby coil to light a wireless gas-discharge lamp that he held in his hand.
Scott Joplin, Texarkana pianist called "King of Ragtime" became widely known for his piano playing at the fair.
A college English teacher named Katharine Lee Bates was so inspired by her visit to Chicago and the fair that she reflected on "alabaster cities" in her lyrics to "America the Beautiful."
And somewhere among the exhibits was a bois d'arc wagon built in Bonham, Texas and bois d'arc walking sticks from Forney, Texas.