Fair Grounds on Church Street

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Fair Grounds on Church Street
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When the first agricultural fair was held in Norfolk in 1853, the Fair Grounds were located along the extension of Church Street, about a half mile from what, at that time was the City's northern limits (near Princess Anne Road).

Hampton Roads Times Magazine
HamptonRoadsTimes.com

The land had been conveyed to the City of Norfolk by Eber Shaw and his wife; the Seaboard Agricultural Society had ownership by 1859 (according to a deed for property bounding on its southwest corner, Norfolk County Deed Book 86, p.368).
The grounds may have been one of the reasons for the development of the city's first street railway system, for the original Norfolk City Railroad's charter called for a six-mile track extending from the west end of Main Street to the Fair Grounds. And by about 1870, the street railway’s car barn was built on Church Street, just south of the fairgrounds. (See the 1889 map of the street railway lines…..)