PHILADELPHIA, Miss. — Each summer, hundreds of brightly colored cabins come to life with the sound of children playing and smells of Southern comfort food in what’s known as Mississippi’s “giant house party,” the Neshoba County Fair.
The fair touts itself as the largest campground fair in the country, where attendees cram into more than 500 two-and-three story wood cabins for eight days every year. The larger cabins can sleep upwards of 30 people, sometimes in the same room.
“It’s like having two Christmases a year,” said Mike Hardy, who attends the fair just about every year and shared a cabin this year with 20 members of his family, from infants to grandparents.
For Hardy, who lives more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) away in Nashville, Tennessee, the fair is one of the only times he visits his hometown. He calls it a high school, college and family reunion all wrapped into one.
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” he said. “It’s just always been a big part of our lives.”
Hardy inherited the cabin from his father, who bought it in the late 1960s. It’s located in what’s known as ‘watermelon alley,’ one of several neighborhoods that divide up the community, which feels like a mix between a candy-colored frontier town and an amusement park. His children grew up going there. The pictures they drew on hot summer days still hang on the walls, joined now by their own children’s artwork.
His daughter, Madison Hardy-Dennis, attended her first fair when she was less than a year old. Now, her 6-year-old twins run barefoot in the red Mississippi mud, play pranks and get into water balloon fights — just like she did.
“I hope that they understand how special this week is, and that this place is,” Hardy-Dennis said.
Horse-race watching at the nearby race track and card playing are among Hardy family’s favorite activities during the fair. They take their kids to the carnival rides and cook large family meals. On their way to the track, they walk through Founders Square, the oldest section of cabins with a pavilion used for dances and political speeches. It’s where Ronald Reagan gave his famous states’ rights speech in 1980 while running for president.
Sid Salter, whose family has been going to the fair since it first opened in 1889, said it’s a place where children are safe to roam freely. Often, parents write their kid’s name and cabin number on their arms. If they get lost, a friendly fair-goer will help them find their way back.
The communal atmosphere extends to mealtime. Although only about 20 people stay in their cabin, Salter’s family often feeds 50 or 60 people a day.
“It’s not an inexpensive hobby,” he joked, “but it’s a great time with people you only see, you know, during the fair.”
The fair, Salter said, also feels like a reunion with loved ones who are no longer living. He imagines that the spirits of his twin sister, first wife and parents like to “knock around” the campground where they made so many memories.
“It may be a figment of a fertile imagination — I’m sure it is — but I feel it,” he said.
At 66 years old, Salter has only missed three Neshoba County Fairs, once for an adventure camp when he was 13, again to cover the 2000 Republican National Convention as a reporter and in 2017 when he was battling cancer. He said he often eats the same meals, does the same activities and sees the same people year after year.
“In a sea of change in every facet of our lives, the fair is constant,” he said.