The midway at Rhinebeck. 180 years of this. © 2013 Jinkook Hwang. All rights reserved.Every town has its own way of marking the end of summer. Ours arrives in the last week of August, twenty minutes up Route 9, when the Dutchess County Fair opens its gates in Rhinebeck.
This is the fair's 180th year. We've gone almost every year we've lived here, and I can tell you the feeling doesn't wear off. Something shifts in the whole county the week it opens — you see the hand-painted signs go up, traffic slows to a crawl on Route 9, and everyone you run into asks the same question: are you going this year? The answer, in this house, is always yes.
A fair with presidential ribbons
We live in Hyde Park — FDR's hometown. His estate is just down the road from us, and if you visit the coach house there, you'll find something I love showing people: rows of ribbons and medals the Roosevelt family won at this very fair.
Think about that for a second. A family that produced a president of the United States competed at the same local fair we wander through every August — and was proud enough of those ribbons to keep them. That's what a county fair is. It's not a tourist attraction. It's the county's living room, and everyone from farm kids to presidents' families has shown up to it with something to show.
The animals are the heart of it
People come for the rides and the food, but the heart of the fair is the animal barns, and that's always where we head first. Horse shows in the ring, cattle and sheep and goats being brushed and fussed over by the 4-H kids who raised them, rabbits, chickens, the occasional llama giving you side-eye. So many beautiful animals, and so many young people who clearly poured their whole summer into them.
The horse ring. We can stand here for an hour without noticing. © 2021 Sumi Pak. All rights reserved.
Then there are the shows. The dog jump — dogs launching themselves off a dock into a pool, each one absolutely certain it's about to set a world record. The pig races, which I refuse to spoil except to say you will pick a favorite within seconds and you will care about the outcome far more than you expect to. Jinguk and I have watched these more times than I can count and we still stay to the end.
Full commitment, every single time. © 2013 Jinkook Hwang. All rights reserved.
And then, the milkshake
Here is the one piece of hard-earned local wisdom I'll hand you: at the end of your day — after the barns, the shows, the rides, the fried everything — you get in the milkshake line.
Yes, the line is long. It stretches. It does not matter. That milkshake, made right there at the fair, is the single correct way to end a fair day, and the whole county seems to agree, which is why the line looks the way it does. Get in it anyway.
The line tells you everything you need to know. © Jinkook Hwang. All rights reserved.What Jinguk sees in it
Jinguk didn't grow up with any of this — county fairs are a deeply American institution, and even most of our Korean friends in the city have never been to one. Korea has wonderful regional festivals of its own, but this particular thing — an agricultural fair where the county's kids compete with animals they raised themselves, where the midway smells like fried dough and the barns smell like hay, where four generations of the same family show up on the same day — doesn't really have an equivalent.
Watching it through his eyes over the years has made me see it fresh, too. What looks like simple small-town fun is actually one of the most honest windows into American life I know of. This is the America that doesn't make the news: 4-H kids, tractor displays, blue ribbons, a grandstand. If you're curious about this country beyond its cities, a county fair will teach you more in one afternoon than a month in Manhattan.
That's part of why we keep bringing our cameras. We'd love to be the bridge — to show the people who'd never otherwise stand in a Rhinebeck milkshake line what this is like. Keep an eye on our Youtube channel (@miguktv) — the fair is coming to it soon.
If you go
The 180th Dutchess County Fair runs Tuesday, August 25 through Sunday, August 30, 2026.
- Where: Dutchess County Fairgrounds, 6596 Route 9, Rhinebeck, NY — about 2 hours north of Manhattan
- Hours: 10am–10pm Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–8pm Sunday
- Admission: $15 pre-sale / $18 at the gate; kids 11 and under free. Wednesday is Senior & Military Day ($12 with ID)
- Rides: all-day wristband $33 pre-sale / $40 at the gate
- Parking: free
- It runs rain or shine
Our own advice, earned over many years: buy tickets pre-sale, go hungry, wear real shoes, give the animal barns more time than you think they need, and end with the milkshake. Trust us on the milkshake.
So here's my question for you: does your hometown have something like this — the one event a year the whole town shows up for? Tell me about it in the comments. And if you've been to the Dutchess County Fair, tell me your must-do — I want to know if anyone else plans their whole day around that milkshake line.
Subscribe if you'd like to follow along — the fair video is coming to @miguktv soon.
events & festivals, dutchess county fair, rhinebeck ny, hudson valley, county fair, american culture, hyde park ny, fdr, through korean eyes, miguktv
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